THE  METROPOLITAN  MUSEUM  OF  ART 


THE   TOMB  OF 
PERNEB 


It 


NEW  YORK  MCMXVI 


f  rs:- 


THE  TOMB  OF 
PERNEB 


THE  METROPOLITAN  MUSEUM  OF  ART 

THE   TOMB  OF 
P  E  R  N  E  B 


WITH 
ILLUSTRATIONS 


NEW  YORK 
M  C  M  X  V  I   I  I 


COPYRIGHT 
BY 

THE  METROPOLITAN  MUSEUM  OF  ART 
FEBRUARY,  I916 


THE  TOMB  OF  PERNEB 
WHICH  ORIGINALLY  STOOD 
IN  THE  CEMETERY  OF  THE  ANCIENT  MEMPHIS 
AND  WAS  ACQUIRED 
FROM  THE  EGYPTIAN  GOVERNMENT  IN  I913 
WAS  PRESENTED  TO 
THE  METROPOLITAN  MUSEUM  OF  ART 
BY 

EDWARD  S.  HARKNESS 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Dedication    .........  v 

Table  of  Contents  vii 

List  of  Illustrations  ix 


CHAPTER  I 

History  of  the  tomb  and  principal  features  of 
its  construction,  as  ascertained  in  the  work 
of  removing  it  from  sakkara  for  re-erection 

IN  THE  MUSEUM.      By  ALBERT  M.   LyTHGOE    .      .  3 

The  cemetery  of  Memphis — The  mastaba- 
tomb — The  tomb  of  Perneb — Its  position — Its 
plan — The  history  of  the  tomb — The  discovery 
of  the  tomb — The  excavation  and  removal  of 
the  tomb — Details  of  its  construction — Pack- 
ing of  the  blocks — Transport  of  the  boxes — 
Arrival  at  the  Museum  and  treatment  for  pres- 
ervation— Re-erection  of  the  tomb  in  the  Mu- 
seum. 


TABLE    OF  CONTENTS 


Chapter  II  47 

A  STUDY  OF  ITS  DECORATIVE  AND  INSCRIPTIONAL 
FEATURES.     By  CAROLINE  L.  RANSOM  .        .  .49 

The  figures  on  the  facade — Date  of  Perneb's 
activity — Titles  on  the  lintel  in  the  entrance 
passage — Scene  in  the  vestibule — Decoration 
of  the  passage  between  the  vestibule  and  the 
main  chamber — The  main  chamber — Technic 
of  the  decoration — Conventions  in  the  use  of 
color. 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


Fig.  i.    Map  showing  position  of  Memphis  and 

its  cemetery  5 

Fig.  2.  Map  of  Sakkara  cemetery  showing 
position  of  tomb  of  Perneb.  Adapted 
from  de  Morgan,  Carte  de  la  Necro- 
pole  Memphite,  PI.  10  .      .      .      .  7 

Fig.  3.  Tomb  of  Perneb.  Section  east  and 
west  through  courtyard  and  burial- 
chamber   8 

Fig.  4.    Plan  of  tomb  of  Perneb    ....  9 

Fig.  5.  Model  of  tomb  of  Perneb  showing  abut- 
ment against  tomb  of  Shepsesre  and 
a  tomb  to  the  north  11 

Fig.  6.  View  southwest  from  Pyramid  of  Teta 
showing  position  of  tomb  of  Perneb  at 
the  right.  In  the  middle  distance  an 
unidentified  stone  pyramid,  the  Step 
Pyramid,  and  the  small  pyramid  of 
Unas  12 

Fig.  7.    Excavation  and  removal  of  tomb  of 

Perneb.    View  from  north  .      .  13 

Fig.  8.    Courtyard  of  Perneb  looking  south  14 


LIST    OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


Fig- 

9- 

1           /•     j-x                        111"  1 

Courtyard  of  Perneb  looking  north 

PAGE 

Fig. 

10. 

Clearing  courtyard  of  Perneb  . 

16 

Fig- 

1 1. 

Clearing  courtyard  of  Perneb  . 

17 

Fig. 

12. 

View  south  across  tomb  after  removal 

of  upper  courses  

18 

Fig. 

13- 

View  south  across  tomb  with  only  lower 

courses  remaining     .  ... 

19 

Fig. 

14. 

Progress  of  the  excavations  . 

22 

Fig. 

15. 

Preparing  to  remove  upper  courses  of 

1                                             A                 1                   t                               1                                                     1*1                                                  /"*  1  1  1 

decorated  chambers,  which  are  filled 

*  A    1                                         1         J                                                                 A           .    J                                  1*  /• 

with  sand  to  prevent  the  collapse  of 

their  walls  

23 

Fig- 

16. 

Removing  lintel  of  main  doorway 

25 

Fig. 

17- 

Hauling  lintel  of  main  doorway  . 

27 

Fig- 

18. 

Packing  lintel  of  main  doorway  . 

29 

Fig- 

19. 

Clearing  the  statue-chamber  . 

30 

Fig. 

20. 

Removing  blocks  from  facade 

3i 

Fig. 

21. 

Fallen  blocks  found  at  the  bottom  of 

the  main  chamber     .    •  .      .  . 

32 

Fig- 

22. 

Model  vases  and  dishes  of  stone  from 

the  burial-chamber  .... 

33 

Fig- 

23- 

Method  of  carrying  blocks  . 

35 

Fig- 

24. 

Wrapping  and  packing  blocks 

37 

Fig- 

25- 

Camels  bringing  lumber  and  packing 

materials  

39 

Fig. 

26. 

T               1  *             1                 *  1 

Loading  heavier  boxes  on  cars 

40 

Fig.  27. 

Train  ready  to  leave  Sakkara 

4i 

Fig- 

28. 

Hauling  train  in  the  desert  . 

43 

Fig.  29. 

Our  camp  at  Sakkara  .... 

45 

Fig. 

30. 

Figure  of  Perneb  on  the  facade  to  the 

left  of  the  doorway  .... 

52 

Fig- 

3i- 

Figure  of  Perneb  on  the  facade  to  the 

right  of  the  doorway  .... 

53 

LIST    OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 

Fig.  32.  Quarry  mark,  "The  Companion,  Per- 
neb," in  cursive  writing  ...  57 

Fig.  33.  Inscription,  "The  Sole  Companion,  the 
Lord  Chamberlain,  Perneb, "  in  orna- 
mental hieroglyphs     ....  57 

Fig.  34.  Preliminary  sketch,  Perneb  inspecting 
gifts  of  estates  of  the  North  and 
South  59 

Fig.  35.  "False  Door"  in  main  chamber  in- 
scribed with  prayers  for  the  deceased 
Lord  Chamberlain      ....  65 

Fig.  36.  Side  wall  in  main  chamber  showing 
door  from  vestibule  and  scene  of 
offerings  brought  to  the  tomb  .      .  67 

Fig.  37.  Detail  from  side  wall  in  main  chamber 
showing  offerings  and  priests  per- 
forming ceremonies     ....  69 

Fig.  38.  Detail  from  a  Fifth  Dynasty  tomb 
showing  horizontal  guiding  lines. 
After  Davies,  The  Mastaba  of  Ptah- 
hetep  and  Akhethetep  at  Saqqareh, 

II,  PI.  17  73 

Fig.  39.    Offering-vessel  75 


THE  TOMB  OF  PERNEB 
CHAPTER  I 

THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  TOMB 
AND  THE  PRINCIPAL  FEATURES 
OF  ITS  CONSTRUCTION 


CHAPTER  I 


THE  CEMETERY  OF  MEMPHIS 

MORE  than  four  thousand  five  hundred  years 
ago — we  may  say  approximately  2650  B.  C. 
— an  Egyptian  dignitary  named  Perneb,  who 
held  high  office  under  the  king  at  Memphis,  erected  in 
the  great  cemetery  of  the  capital  a  tomb  which  should 
afford  enduring  protection  to  his  body  and  likewise 
stand  as  a  fitting  memorial  to  his  name.  During  the 
long  period  when  Memphis  served  as  the  seat  of  the 
kingdom,  its  cemetery,  which  lay  along  the  desert  edge 
west  of  the  city,  reached  such  widely  separated  points 
as  Abu  Roash  on  the  north  and  Dahshur  on  the  south — 
a  stretch  some  twenty  miles  in  length.  In  this  particu- 
lar period  when  Perneb  lived — the  Fifth  Dynasty — the 
kings  selected  principally  the  region  centering  about  the 
modern  Sakkara  for  the  erection  of  their  pyramids;  and 
near  these  royal  mausolea,  if  possible,  the  dignitaries  of 
the  court  always  elected  to  place  their  own.  Thus, 
Perneb  and  one  named  Shepsesre,  who  was  in  all 
likelihood  Perneb's  son,  constructed  their  tombs  side 
by  side  at  Sakkara,  in  an  area  some  two  hundred 


THE    TOMB    OF  PERNEB 

and  fifty  yards  north  of  the  "Step  Pyramid"  of  King 
Zoser  and  just  outside  the  great  enclosure-wall  of  that 
pyramid  and  its  precinct.  This  king  had  lived  some 
three  hundred  years  before  this  time,  and  with  the 
ambition  to  erect  a  monument  more  imposing  than 
those  of  any  of  his  predecessors,  had  constructed  this 
first  royal  tomb  in  the  semblance  of  a  pyramid,  although 
in  the  strictest  sense  it  did  not  have  this  form.  This 
monument,  therefore,  was  already  one  of  some  antiquity 
in  Perneb's  time,  but  we  may  almost  take  it  for  granted 
that  his  own  sovereign  was  one  of  those  who  had  erected 
their  pyramids  in  the  district,  and  so  Perneb  had  chosen 
this  position  for  his  final  resting-place  as  being  as  near 
that  of  his  lord  and  master  as  circumstances  allowed. 

THE  MASTABA-TOMB 

The  cemetery  of  Sakkara  at  this  period  must  have 
formed  an  imposing  sight.  With  here  and  there  a  pyra- 
mid towering  above  its  surroundings,  the  space  between 
was  filled  with  a  vast  number  of  these  private  tombs 
such  as  that  of  Perneb.  In  many  cases  they  were 
undoubtedly  arranged  with  a  considerable  degree  of 
regularity,  row  by  row  in  streets,  with  occasionally  a 
broad  avenue  to  afford  easier  access  to  the  area;  while 
in  other  sections  their  positions,  following  the  natural 
contours  of  the  surface,  could  not  have  had  so  regular 
an  aspect.  The  tombs  were  all  similar  in  outward 
appearance,  of  a  type  prevalent  throughout  Egypt  dur- 
ing these  earlier  periods  of  its  history.  Their  origin 
dated  back  to  the  very  first  Egyptian  dynasty,  since 
which  time  their  construction  had  advanced  through 
several  definitely  marked  stages,  until  at  the  period  we 

4 


THE    TOMB    OF  PERNEB 

are  considering  they  had  reached  their  highest  point  of 
development.  Rectangular  in  plan,  with  axis  north  and 
south,  they  were  oriented  to  the  points  of  the  compass, 
as  was  the  case,  also,  with  the  pyramid;  and,  like  the 
latter,  their  principal  face  was  that  towards  the  Nile,  the 
direction  from  which  they  were  approached  as  people 
came  up  from  the  towns  and  villages  in  the  valley.  Con- 
structed generally  of  limestone,  their  sides  rose  in  an 
abrupt  slope,  at  an  angle  considerably  steeper  than  that 
of  the  pyramid,  and  their  tops  were  flat.  Although 
varying  somewhat  in  size,  they  averaged  quite  forty  to 
fifty  feet  in  length,  thirty  to  forty  feet  in  width,  and 
fifteen  to  twenty  feet  in  height.  From  their  resem- 
blance to  the  long,  flat  benches  or  seats  in  use  in  the 
Egyptian  house,  they  have  been  given  the  name  of 
"mastaba"  in  modern  times. 

Deep  down  beneath  this  superstructure  of  the  tomb 
was  the  burial-chamber,  reached  by  a  shaft  descending 
perpendicularly  through  the  tomb-structure  and  the 
bed-rock  of  the  plateau,  forty,  fifty,  and  even  some- 
times ninety  to  a  hundred  feet  in  depth.  In  the  cham- 
ber was  the  sarcophagus,  massive  in  size  and  generally 
of  limestone  or  granite.  After  the  interment  the  cham- 
ber was  sealed  by  a  great  portcullis,  or  by  blocking  the 
doorway  with  masonry,  and  then  the  shaft  was  com- 
pletely filled  with  rock  and  gravel  and  sealed  over  at 
the  level  of  the  top  of  the  tomb  above. 

The  superstructure  itself  contained  two  other  essen- 
tial features  of  the  tomb.  The  first  of  these  was  the 
chapel  or  offering-chamber,  sometimes  elaborated  into  a 
series  of  rooms  and  columned  halls,  their  walls  covered 
with  sculptured  and  painted  scenes  depicting  the  offer- 

6 


X  « 

w  < 

H  O 

UJ 

S  Z 

u  g 

<  o 
< 

*  Q 

<  s 
w  3 

i,.  a; 


Q 

.  < 


THE    TOMB    OF  PERNEB 

mg-ceremonies,  and  very  often,  too,  the  various  activi- 
ties and  pleasures  which  the  owner  had  pursued  in  the 
life  he  had  left  behind,  and  which  he  expected  to 
continue  in  the  life  hereafter.  These  chambers  were 
entered  through  a  doorway,  which  was  generally  in  the 


FIG.  3.     TOMB    OF    PERNEB.     SECTION   EAST   AND   WEST  THROUGH 
COURTYARD  AND  BURIAL-CHAMBER 

eastern  facade  of  the  tomb,  though  oftentimes  an  en- 
trance on  the  north  or  south  end  led  to  them  through 
a  corridor  or  hall.  The  Egyptian  thought  of  the  de- 
ceased as  sojourning  in  the  tomb,  accompanied  by  his 
ka  or  "double,"  and  it  was  necessary  therefore  that 

8 


THE    TOMB    OF  PERNEB 

food  and  drink  be  provided  for  their  sustenance.  Thus, 
a  noble  of  Perneb's  position  often  ensured  this  provision 
by  leaving  an  endowment,  the  income  from  which  was 
to  be  devoted  to  the  maintenance  of  the  tomb  and  its 
ritual.  Estates  were  sometimes  included  in  this  endow- 
ment, which  was  the  fact  in  Perneb's  case  (see  page 
6 1 ) ;  and  in  one  instance  it  is  recorded  that  a  court  official 
of  this  dynasty  appointed  as  many  as  eight  mortuary 
priests  for  the  service  of  his  tomb. 

The  other  and  final  feature  of  the  tomb  was  the  secret 
statue-chamber,  or  "serdab,"  as  it  has  been  called, 
where  the  portrait-statue  of  the  owner  and  sometimes 
those  of  members  of  his  family  stood.  This  chamber 
was  never  accessible,  but  was  constructed  in  the  tomb 
superstructure  somewhere  in  proximity  to  one  of  the 
offering-chambers.  If  connected  at  all  with  them,  it  was 
merely  by  a  narrow  slot,  which  was  provided  apparently 
that  the  deceased,  on  his  visits  to  the  statue-chamber  to 
look  again  with  pleasure  on  the  likeness  of  his  earthly 
form,  might  be  attracted  by  the  smell  of  the  incenseand 
offerings  in  the  outer  chamber  and  come  to  partake 
of  the  meats  and  fruits  and  other  delicacies  which  had 
been  brought. 

THE  TOMB  OF  PERNEB 

The  tomb  which  Perneb  erected  at  Sakkara  con- 
formed in  general  to  this  description,  though  in  its 
arrangement  of  chambers  it  was  less  pretentious  and 
elaborate  than  the  adjoining  tomb  of  Shepsesre.  From 
common  features  in  their  construction  it  is  clear  that 
both  these  tombs  were  built  at  one  and  the  same  time. 
The  evidence  for  this,  as  we  shall  see  later,  lies  in  the 


HISTORY    AND  CONSTRUCTION 

manner  in  which  two  projecting  wings  from  the  facade 
of  Perneb's  tomb  abutted  on  that  of  Shepsesre,  and  the 
way  in  which  the  construction  of  the  latter  was  finished 
in  order  to  meet  this  feature. 


FIG.   5.     MODEL  OF  TOMB  OF  PERNEB  SHOWING  ABUTMENT  AGAINST 
TOMB  OF  SHEPSESRE  AND  A  TOMB  TO  THE  NORTH 


ITS  POSITION 

The  tomb  of  Shepsesre  stood  to  the  eastward  of 
that  of  Perneb,  with  a  space  of  some  eight  feet  between 
them,  while  their  southern  sides,  which  were  practi- 
cally in  alignment,  were  about  fifteen  or  twenty  teet 
distant  from  the  enclosure-wall  of  Zoser's  pyramid, 
and  abutted  on  a  street  which  ran  close  alongside 
the  base  of  the  wall  on  that  side.  Perhaps  a  hun- 
dred feet  or  more  to  the  north  a  great  avenue,  following 
a  natural  depression,  crossed  the  cemetery  east  and 

1 1 


z 

Ui 

X 

°  Q 

^  < 

2  * 


O 


THE    TOMB    OF  PERNEB 

west,  and  although  it  is  now  drifted  in  with  the  desert 
sand  its  position  stands  out  prominently  at  the  present 
time  (see  fig.  2).  Shepsesre's  tomb  was  planned  to 
cover  in  length  the  entire  space  between  this  avenue 
and  the  street  at  the  south  which  skirted  the  base  of 


FIG.   10.     CLEARING  COURTYARD  OF  PERNEB 


the  great  enclosure-wall.  But  that  of  Perneb,  whether 
from  lack  of  space  or  the  fact  that  it  was  designed  on 
less  pretentious  lines,  was  made  to  fit  in  between  the 
street  at  the  south  just  mentioned  and  a  tomb  of  similar 
size,  which  already  stood  on  the  avenue  to  the  north  of 
it.  In  fact,  the  space  available  at  this  spot  for  the 
erection  of  the  tomb  of  Perneb  was  actually  insufficient 
to  take  its  length  as  apparently  already  planned,  and 
this  difficulty  was  met  not  by  reducing  its  length  at  all, 
but  by  allowing  the  sloping  north  side  of  the  tomb  to 

16 


HISTORY    AND  CONSTRUCTION 

rest  against  the  end  of  the  earlier  tomb,  as  may  be  seen 
in  fig.  4.  Between  this  earlier  tomb  and  that  of 
Shepsesre  a  passage  was  left  from  the  main  avenue  as 
a  means  of  access  to  the  former,  and  advantage  was 
taken  of  this  in  the  planning  of  Perneb's  tomb,  that 


FIG.    II.     CLEARING  COURTYARD  OF  PERN EB 


it  might  serve  as  the  means  of  entrance  to  his  tomb 
also. 

ITS  PLAN 

The  tomb  of  Perneb  followed  the  regulation  rectangu- 
lar form  (see  plan,  fig.  4),  and  measured  about  fifty- 
four  feet  in  length,  forty  feet  in  width,  and  eighteen  feet 
in  height.  This  plan,  however,  was  amplified  by  the 
addition  of  the  two  projecting  wings  on  the  facade 
already  mentioned,  thus  forming  a  courtyard  about 
twenty-five  and  one-half  feet  long  and  eight  feet  wide 

17 


THE    TOMB    OF  PERNEB 

between  the  facade  of  the  tomb  and  the  back  of  that 
of  Shepsesre.  Entrance  to  the  tomb  was  provided,  from 
the  avenue  and  passage  described  above,  through  a 
doorway  and  chamber  in  the  northern  wing,  and  so  into 
the  courtyard  beyond.    On  the  southern  side  of  the 


FIG.    12.     VIEW   SOUTH    ACROSS   TOMB    AFTER    REMOVAL   OF  UPPER 

COURSES 

court  a  doorway  in  the  other  wing  led  into  an  offering- 
chamber  and  in  the  western  wall  of  this  a  slot  opened 
through  into  the  serdab  constructed  in  the  tomb  proper. 

Another,  and  the  principal,  offering-chamber  was 
reached  through  a  great  recessed  doorway,  thirteen  and 
one-half  feet  high  and  eight  feet  wide,  in  the  center  of 
the  facade.  Passing  through  the  doorway  in  this  recess, 
one  entered  first  a  small  vestibule  and  then  through  a 
doorway  on  the  left  into  the  chamber  itself.  This  part 
of  the  tomb  alone  was  decorated.    Outside,  to  the  right 

1 8 


HISTORY   AND  CONSTRUCTION 

and  left  on  the  face  of  the  main  doorway,  was  a  large 
figure  of  Perneb  in  painted  relief,  stand  ing  in  the  con- 
ventional attitude,  with  one  foot  advanced  and  grasping 
his  staff  in  his  hand.  On  the  roll-shaped  lintel  of  the 
doorway  a  painted  panel  bore  his  name  and  title — 


FIG.    13.     VIEW  SOUTH  ACROSS  TOMB   WITH  ONLY  LOWER  COURSES 

REMAINING 


"Perneb,  Sole  Companion  (of  the  King)  and  Lord 
Chamberlain." 

The  decoration  of  this  main  offering-chamber  and  its 
vestibule  offers  interesting  evidence,  which  will  be 
described  in  detail  in  a  succeeding  chapter,  that  the 
tomb  was  hurriedly  finished,  and,  in  so  far  at  least  as  its 
decoration  was  concerned,  never  completed.  This 
fact,  moreover,  is  borne  out  by  certain  conditions  in 
another  part  of  the  tomb;  for  in  the  southern  chamber 
described  above,  the  walls  exhibit  an  inferior  and  hap- 

19 


THE   TOMB   OF  PERNEB 

hazard  type  of  masonry  entirely  out  of  keeping  with 
that  in  any  other  part  of  the  structure.  If,  as  seems 
likely,  Pernebhad  left  the  erection  of  his  tomb  until  the 
later  years  of  his  life,  perhaps  some  warning  of  his 
approaching  end  or  even  death  itself  rendered  the  hur- 
ried finishing  of  these  features  necessary. 

Referring  again  to  the  courtyard,  on  the  facade  of  the 
tomb  high  up  on  the  left  of  the  main  doorway  was  a 
window  which  opened  through  into  the  decorated 
offering-chamber.  Hardly  of  pretentious  size  as  it 
appears  in  the  facade,  this  window  narrows  down 
toward  the  inside  until  it  becomes  hardly  more  than  a 
mere  slit  in  the  chamber  itself.  It  must  be  borne  in 
mind  that  in  Egypt,  with  the  blinding  glare  of  the  sun  on 
the  desert  outside,  some  such  reduction  in  size  of  the 
window  would  be  necessary  if  the  lighting  of  the 
chamber  were  to  be  subdued  and  in  keeping  with  its 
purpose. 

Of  the  doorways  in  the  tomb,  three  had  been  provided 
with  wooden  doors,  or  at  least  had  been  fitted  to  receive 
them.  These  were  the  two  doorways  in  the  northern 
wing — the  outermost,  by  which  persons  entered  from 
the  street,  and  the  second  one,  which  led  into  the  court- 
yard— and,  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  courtyard,  the 
doorway  leading  into  the  southern  chamber.  In  all 
three  cases  the  doors  were  single,  of  the  regulation  type, 
with  a  pivot  at  top  and  bottom,  swinging  in  holes  in  the 
lintel  and  the  floor.  It  could  be  seen  that  both  door- 
ways of  the  northern  wing,  moreover,  had  had  sockets, 
presumably  of  bronze  or  wood  and  containing  the  pivot 
holes,  which  had  been  set  into  pockets  about  six  inches 
square  in  the  lintels;  for  in  each  case  those  who  had 

20 


HISTORY    AND  CONSTRUCTION 

stripped  the  tomb  had  chiseled  away  the  stone  suffi- 
ciently to  extract  them.  In  the  doorway  in  the  south- 
ern chamber,  however,  the  pivot  hole  was  simply  cut  in 
the  lintel  itself  and  was  about  three  inches  in  diameter. 
Only  the  outermost  doorway  on  the  street  had  been 
provided  with  a  bolt,  but  the  nature  of  this  could  not  be 
determined,  for  the  block  in  the  door-jamb,  in  which 
presumably  it  had  been  set,  had  been  torn  out  of  the 
wall  by  the  plunderers  and  was  missing. 

In  the  northwest  and  southwest  corners  of  the  court- 
yard, where  the  two  wings  join  the  facade,  was  in  each 
case  a  small  blunted  obelisk,  of  limestone  and  unin- 
scribed — symbols  of  the  Sun-god.  In  a  third  corner  of 
the  courtyard,  the  northeastern  one,  a  low  bench  was 
constructed  of  Nile  mud  covered  with  white  stucco. 
This  measured  about  six  feet  in  length,  two  and  one- 
half  feet  in  width,  and  six  inches  in  height,  and  may 
have  been  intended  as  a  seat  on  which  visitors  might 
rest  or  as  a  place  where  offerings  might  be  placed  before 
they  were  taken  into  the  tomb  during  the  ceremonies. 

The  burial-chamber,  the  position  of  which  can  be 
seen  in  fig.  3,  was  reached  by  a  shaft  about  five  feet 
square  and  fifty-five  feet  in  depth.  The  chamber,  which 
opened  out  of  the  shaft  on  its  eastern  side  at  the  bottom, 
was  roughly  cut  out  of  the  solid  rock  and  somewhat 
irregular  in  shape,  measuring  approximately  thirteen 
feet  in  length,  nine  feet  in  width,  and  six  and  one-half 
feet  in  height.  It  was  provided  with  a  limestone  sar- 
cophagus, placed  along  its  eastern  side,  having  a 
rounded  lid  and  measuring  in  length  eight  feet  ten 
inches,  in  width  three  feet  nine  inches,  and  in  height 
four  feet  ten  inches. 

21 


THE    TOMB    OF  PERNEB 

A  few  yards  to  the  north  of  this  burial-chamber  and 
its  shaft,  Perneb,  as  if  to  make  provision  for  the  burial 
of  his  wife  or  some  member  of  his  family,  had  begun  the 
construction  of  another  shaft  which  was  carried  down  as 


FIG.    14.      PROGRESS  OF  THE  EXCAVATIONS 


far  as  the  bed-rock  and  excavated  in  the  latter  to  the 
depth  of  about  one  yard,  but  never  completed  farther. 

THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  TOMB 

Following  the  death  of  Perneb,  we  can  trace  the 
history  of  the  tomb  through  the  succeeding  ages,  both 
from  the  evidence  which  it  itself  affords  and  also  from 
the  general  conditions  which  prevail  throughout  the 
Memphite  cemetery.  For  several  generations,  at  least, 
the  mortuary  priests  and  Perneb's  descendants  fulfilled 
their  pious  duty  of  visiting  the  tomb  and  providing  the 
necessary  offerings  of  food  and  drink  for  his  sustenance. 

22 


HISTORY    AND  CONSTRUCTION 

Then  gradually  this  care  ceased,  and  as  neglect  fell  upon 
the  tomb  it  was  visited  by  thieves  and  plunderers  who 
searched  it  for  whatever  could  be  found  of  value.  With 
considerable  labor  they  cleared  the  burial  shaft  of  the 
boulders  and  rubble,  with  which  it  had  been  filled  for 


FIG.    15.     PREPARING  TO   REMOVE   UPPER  COURSES  OF  DECORATED 
CHAMBERS,  WHICH  ARE   FILLED  WITH  SAND  TO  PREVENT 
THE  COLLAPSE  OF  THEIR  WALLS 


the  very  purpose  of  thwarting  such  efforts,  and  gained 
an  entrance  to  the  burial-chamber.  Then  breaking 
open  the  sarcophagus,  they  stripped  the  mummy  of  its 
ornaments  and  scattered  about  the  floor  the  Canopic  jars 
of  limestone,  the  pottery  vessels  containing  food  and 
drink,  and  many  tiny  stone  vases  and  dishes  with  which 
the  deceased  had  been  provided.  At  the  same  time, 
entering  the  offering-chamber  in  the  south  wing  of  the 
facade,  they  ripped  out  the  masonry  framing  the  slot 

23 


THE    TOMB    OF  PERNEB 

which  opened  into  the  serdab,  and  dragged  out  the  life- 
size  cedar  statue  of  Perneb,  as  well  as  other  smaller 
wooden  statues  which  stood  there.  These  they  broke 
up  on  the  spot  and  carried  away  as  fire-wood,  leaving  on 
the  floor  of  the  offering-chamber  a  fragment  of  the  head 
of  the  cedar  statue  and  an  arm  and  a  foot  from  the 
smaller  ones,  as  evidence  of  their  work  of  destruction. 
Small  pottery  dishes,  evidently  representing  an  offering, 
had  originally  been  placed  by  Perneb's  descendants  on  a 
limestone  slab  or  shelf  on  the  wall  of  this  southern 
chamber  just  beneath  the  serdab-slot,  and  these  the 
plunderers  likewise  scattered  upon  the  floor. 

And  so  the  tomb  remained  until,  as  time  passed  and 
political  disruption  fell  upon  the  kingdom  at  the  end  of 
the  Sixth  Dynasty,  in  common  with  all  the  others  in  the 
cemetery  it  was  drifted  over  by  the  shifting  desert 
sands  until  practically  lost  to  view.  Later  kings  and 
nobles,  from  the  Middle  Kingdom  on,  found  these  tombs 
at  Sakkara  a  convenient  quarry  from  which  to  obtain 
well-worked  blocks  for  the  construction  of  their  own  edi- 
fices on  other  sites,  and  thus  many  of  them  were  de- 
pleted to  hardly  more  than  half  of  their  original  height. 
Moreover,  it  is  only  within  recent  years,  since  the 
establishment  by  the  Egyptian  Government  of  its 
present  system  of  guarding  such  ancient  sites  and  the 
still  more  recent  enactment  of  rigorous  laws,  that  this 
wholesale  destruction  of  monuments  has  been  stopped. 
As  late  as  1843,  Lepsius,  the  leader  of  the  great  Prussian 
archaeological  expedition  to  Egypt,  in  a  letter  written 
from  the  Pyramids  of  Gizeh  in  January  of  that  year, 
says:  "It  is  really  revolting  to  see  how  long  lines  of 
camels  from  the  neighboring  villages  come  here  daily, 

24 


HISTORY    AND  CONSTRUCTION 

and  march  off  again,  loaded  with  building  stone.  . 
Yesterday  a  beautiful  standing  pillar,  covered  with 
inscriptions,  which  was  just  going  to  be  sketched,  was 
overturned  by  the  robbers  behind  our  backs.    They  do 
not  seem  to  have  succeeded  in  breaking  it  to  pieces. 


FIG.    l6.     REMOVING   LINTEL  OF  MAIN  DOORWAY 


The  people  here  are  so  degenerate  that  their  strength  is 
quite  insufficient,  with  all  their  assiduity,  to  destroy 
what  their  great  predecessors  have  erected."  1  That  the 
Sakkara  cemetery  itself  was  suffering  in  the  same  man- 
ner at  this  time  is  to  be  seen  in  the  modern  villages  of 
Abusir  and  Sakkara,  just  below  the  plateau,  where  the 
walls  of  many  of  the  houses  contain  blocks  from  these 
tombs  bearing  inscriptions  or  relief. 

By  a  fortunate  circumstance,  however,  Perneb's  tomb 

1  R.  Lepsius,  Letters  from  Egypt,  Ethiopia  and  the  Peninsula  of  Sinai, 
London,  1853,  p.  63. 

25 


THE   TOMB    OF  PERNEB 

escaped  this  fate.  Aside  from  a  few  blocks  which  had 
been  taken  from  its  uppermost  courses  at  some  ancient 
period,  presumably  not  long  after  the  end  of  the  Old 
Kingdom,  the  walls  of  the  tomb  remained  intact,  for 
apparently  at  that  very  time  the  top  of  this  tomb  had 
been  chosen  as  a  convenient  spot  for  dumping  the 
broken  stone,  rubble,  and  other  debris  resulting  from  the 
stripping  down  of  neighboring  tombs,  and  thus  a  great 
mound  was  formed  above  it  which  blanketed  and  pro- 
tected it  till  its  discovery  in  recent  years. 

In  the  spring  of  1843,  Lepsius,  following  his  work  at 
the  Gizeh  Pyramids  just  referred  to,  moved  on  to  Sak- 
kara,  where  for  two  or  three  months  he  carried  on 
excavations.  In  the  course  of  these  he  discovered  the 
tomb  of  Shepsesre  and  cleared  its  chambers,  the  plan  of 
which  he  afterwards  published  in  his  Denkmaler,  as  well 
as  the  interesting  scenes  on  their  walls.1  He  did  not 
clear  the  exterior  of  the  tomb,  however,  and  so  the 
adjoining  tomb  of  Perneb  continued  to  remain  unknown. 

Between  1850  and  i860,  Mariette,  in  the  progress  of 
the  excavations  at  Sakkara  which  he  conducted  for  a 
series  of  years  on  behalf  of  the  Cairo  Museum,  cleared  a 
number  of  tombs  in  the  immediate  neighborhood  of  that 
of  Perneb,  including  one  of  a  certain  Prince  Raemkai  not 
far  to  the  west  of  it.  Then  in  1 907  the  Expedition  of  the 
Metropolitan  Museum  made  application  to  the  Egyp- 
tian Government  for  permission  to  obtain  by  purchase 
the  sculptured  walls  from  one  of  these  Sakkara  tombs. 
For  this  purpose  Mr.  J.  E.  Quibell,  then  Director  of 

1  Denkmaeler  aus  Aegypten  und  Aethiopien,  Plates,  Vol.  I,  PI.  39;  Vol. 
II,  Pis.  60-64  bis;  Text  (edited  by  Naville,  Borchardt  and  Sethe),  Vol.  I, 
pp.  165-170. 

26 


HISTORY    AND  CONSTRUCTION 

Government  Excavations  at  Sakkara,  carried  out  the 
clearing  of  a  number  of  tombs  in  the  particular  part  of 
the  cemetery  which  we  are  considering.  In  these  exca- 
vations he  re-opened  the  tomb  of  Raemkai  mentioned 
above,  and  the  offering-chamber  of  this  tomb,  together 


FIG.    17.     HAULING  LINTEL  OF  MAIN  DOORWAY 


with  a  wall  from  the  tomb  of  Nyherkau  and  his  wife, 
Sekhemhathor,  about  a  hundred  yards  eastward,  was 
afterwards  transported  to  New  York,  where  they  are 
now  exhibited  in  our  Third  and  Fourth  Egyptian 
Rooms. 

THE  DISCOVERY  OF  THE  TOMB 

In  the  course  of  the  work  mentioned,  Mr.  Quibell 
attacked  the  great  mound  of  debris  already  described 
as  heaped  up  on  the  tomb  of  Perneb.    After  cutting 

27 


THE    TOMB    OF  PERNEB 

away  one  side  of  it  he  exposed  the  upper  part  of  the 
tomb  on  its  northern  end,  including  the  roofing  blocks 
of  its  main  offering-chamber.  One  of  these  had  been 
broken  by  the  mass  of  debris  which  it  had  been  bearing 
and  a  part  of  it  had  fallen  through  into  the  chamber 
below.  Through  this  opening  we  were  able  to  drop 
down  into  the  chamber,  and  although  it  was  filled  to 
almost  half  its  height  with  sand  which,  completely 
blocking  the  outer  doorway,  had  drifted  in  many  cen- 
turies ago  through  the  vestibule  in  a  gradual  descending 
slope,  we  were  able  to  examine  its  condition.  The  effect 
of  the  great  weight  of  the  debris  which  had  been  thrown 
upon  the  tomb  was  at  once  discernible,  for  this  mass 
bearing  upon  the  loose  gravel  filling  composing  the  core 
of  the  tomb  had  buckled  the  long  southern  wall  of  the 
chamber  inward  to  such  an  extent  that  a  great  section 
of  it  had  collapsed  into  the  sand  in  the  bottom.  The 
other  walls  were  warped  to  a  considerable  degree  and 
the  blocks  of  several  courses  shifted  from  their  original 
positions;  consequently  it  was  clear  that  the  tomb  could 
never  be  opened  at  any  time  for  public  inspection,  as 
has  been  done  by  the  Egyptian  Government  in  the 
case  of  a  number  of  the  important  tombs  at  Sakkara, 
unless  the  walls  of  these  chambers  were  taken  down 
and  completely  re-erected  from  their  foundations. 

THE  EXCAVATION  AND  REMOVAL  OF  THE  TOMB 

It  was  for  this  reason  that  several  years  later,  in  the 
spring  of  191 3,  Sir  Gaston  Maspero,  then  Director 
General  of  Antiquities  at  Cairo,  with  a  constant  and 
friendly  interest  in  the  work  of  the  Metropolitan 
Museum,  gave  his  consent  to  the  proposal  for  the  pur- 

28 


HISTORY    AND  CONSTRUCTION 

chase  of  the  tomb  by  the  Museum  and  its  shipment  to 
New  York.  Mr.  Edward  S.  Harkness,  a  trustee  of  the 
Museum,  generously  offered  to  meet  all  the  expenses 
incurred  in  its  purchase,  as  well  as  in  the  work  of  exca- 
vating and  taking  down  the  tomb  and  transporting  it  to 


FIG.   l8.     PACKING  LINTEL  OF  MAIN  DOORWAY 


the  Museum.  Preparations  were  made  to  begin  the 
work  at  once,  and  by  the  first  week  in  April  the 
writer,  accompanied  by  Mr.  Ambrose  Lansing,  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Museum's  Egyptian  Expedition,  was  en- 
camped near  the  Pyramid  of  Teta,  on  the  edge  of 
the  Sakkara  plateau.  We  had  brought  with  us  from 
the  Expedition  headquarters  at  Thebes  a  group  of 
our  most  experienced  native  overseers,  who  were  to 
undertake  the  direction  of  various  sides  of  the  work, 
and  these  were  supplemented  by  other  workmen,  to  a 
total  of  about  seventy-five,  kindly  placed  at  our  dis- 

29 


THE    TOMB    OF  PERNEB 

posal  from  the  government  excavations  at  Sakkara 
by  Mr.  Quibell,  to  whom  we  were  constantly  indebted 
for  advice  and  help  on  many  sides  throughout  the 
undertaking. 

In  order  to  dispose  of  the  sand  and  debris  from  the 


FIG.    19.     CLEARING  THE  STATUE-CHAMBER 


clearing  of  the  tomb,  a  double  line  of  railway  was  first 
laid  out  from  the  tomb  northwards  to  the  edge  of  the 
depression  marking  the  broad  natural  avenue  already 
described.  Then,  after  cutting  back  the  mound  over 
the  tomb  southward  to  a  point  where  the  enclosure-wall 
of  the  Step  Pyramid  began  to  appear,  the  excavation  of 
the  courtyard  of  Perneb  was  undertaken  and  afterwards 
the  clearing  of  the  exterior  of  the  tomb  on  its  northern, 
western,  and  southern  sides,  in  the  order  mentioned. 
With  the  structure  thus  exposed,  the  work  of  removing 

30 


HISTORY    AND  CONSTRUCTION 

its  walls,  block  by  block,  was  begun.  It  was  our 
intention  to  remove  the  whole  facade  of  the  tomb  with 
the  two  wings  forming  the  courtyard,  as  well  as  all  the 
chambers  of  the  superstructure,  in  order  that  when 
it  was  re-erected  in  the  Museum  its  original  appearance 


FIG.  20.     REMOVING  BLOCKS  FROM  FACADE 

would  be  reproduced  to  visitors  as  it  had  presented  itself 
to  those  who  had  visited  it  in  antiquity.  In  the  case 
of  the  south  chamber  and  the  serdab,  it  proved  later, 
however,  that  owing  to  the  extensive  use  of  plaster- 
filling  in  their  hastily  constructed  walls  (see  p.  19), 
these  could  better  be  shown  in  the  Museum  in  repro- 
ductions, and  hence  they  were  not  removed. 

DETAILS  OF  ITS  CONSTRUCTION 

As  the  work  of  removal  went  on,  the  details  of  the 
construction  of  the  tomb  began  to  appear  clearly  and 


51 


THE    TOMB    OF  PERNEB 

proved  to  coincide  with  those  found  in  other  similar 
structures  of  the  period.  A  core  had  first  been  con- 
structed with  a  facing  of  roughly  dressed  blocks  of 
ordinary  limestone,  which  had  been  quarried  locally,  laid 
in  mortar  and  arranged  in  stepped  courses,  the  face  of 


FIG.   21.      FALLEN  BLOCKS  FOUND  AT  THE  BOTTOM  OF  THE  MAIN 
CHAMBER 

each  course  set  back  one  and  one-half  to  two  inches  from 
that  of  the  course  upon  which  it  rested.  This  core- 
facing  was  backed  by  a  rough  supporting  wall  of  rubble, 
averaging  about  two  feet  and  a  half  in  thickness,  and 
laid  in  Nile  mud.  Then  the  space  comprised  within 
these  walls  was  filled  simply  with  loose  limestone  chips 
and  gravel  to  the  level  of  the  top.  This  core  of  the 
superstructure  finished,  the  whole  was  then  enveloped 
in  a  casing  of  smoothly  dressed  and  fine-grained  lime- 
stone blocks,  laid  in  a  thin  bed  of  mortar,  a  space  of 
about  a  foot  being  left  between  this  outer  casing  and  the 

32 


THE    TOMB    OF  PERNEB 

face  of  the  stepped  core,  which  was  then  filled  with 
rubble. 

Mention  was  made  earlier  in  this  article  of  the  fact 
that  the  adjoining  tomb  of  Shepsesre  was  built  at  the 
same  time  as  that  of  Perneb.  The  proof  of  this  lies  in 
the  fact  that  the  two  wings  of  Perneb's  tomb  which 
abutted  on  the  back  of  the  tomb  of  Shepsesre,  were 
fitted  against  the  stepped  core  of  the  latter  at  the  par- 
ticular moment  when  that  tomb  had  reached  that  point 
in  its  construction.  Then  Shepsesre  carried  forward  the 
final  stage  in  the  erection  of  his  tomb  by  adding  its 
smooth  outer  casing,  but  he  was  obliged  to  end  it 
abruptly  here  on  the  rear  side  at  the  points  where  the 
wings  of  Perneb's  tomb  abutted.  Thus  that  particular 
portion  of  the  rear  of  Shepsesre's  tomb  which  lay  inside 
these  wings  of  Perneb's  courtyard  remained  with  the 
stepped  face  of  the  core  exposed;  but  these  steps 
were  afterwards  filled  out  with  white  plaster  to  a 
smooth  sloping  face  and  so  presented  a  finished  appear- 
ance. 

The  limestone  from  which  the  outer  casing-blocks  of 
these  Memphite  tombs  were  made,  as  well  as  those  used 
in  the  lining  of  the  offering-chambers,  was  generally  ob- 
tained from  a  quarry  renowned  throughout  Egypt  for 
the  fine  quality  of  its  stone.  This  was  situated  on  the 
eastern  bank  of  the  Nile  at  the  modern  Turra,  almost 
opposite  Sakkara  (see  the  map  in  fig.  i).  In  the  con- 
struction of  Perneb's  main  offering-chamber  and  its  ves- 
tibule, the  lining  of  Turra  blocks  was  supported  at  the 
back  by  a  construction  wall  of  rubble,  in  the  same  manner 
as  in  the  case  of  the  stepped  facing  of  the  tomb.  To  a 
certain  extent  the  care  used  in  the  erection  of  these  partic- 

34 


HISTORY   AND  CONSTRUCTION 

ular  chambers  was  disappointing,  though  entirely  char- 
acteristic of  the  methods  employed  in  many  of  the  tombs 
of  the  period.  In  so  costly  and  representative  a  struc- 
ture one  would  have  expected,  in  these  chambers  espe- 
cially, where  the  walls  were  to  be  covered  with  beauti- 


FIG.  23.     METHOD  OF  CARRYING  BLOCKS 


fully  sculptured  scenes,  that  the  courses  would  have 
been  laid  with  fine,  closely  fitting  joints.  But  this 
apparently  seemed  an  unnecessary  labor  to  the  builders 
and  they  used,  instead,  a  liberal  amount  of  plaster  in 
the  face  of  the  joints  to  fill  in  and  conceal  the  defects. 
Thus,  in  the  sculpture  on  these  walls  wherever  a  figure 
happens  to  cross  a  joint,  its  lines  have  often  been 
modeled  across  as  much  as  an  inch  or  two  of  plaster 
with  which  the  ragged  edges  of  the  blocks  had  been 
filled  out.  This  difference  in  material,  of  course,  was 
rendered  practically  invisible  when  the  painter  after- 

35 


THE    TOMB    OF  PERNEB 

wards  finished  the  work  by  covering  it  completely  with 
his  colors. 

In  the  work  of  taking  down  such  a  structure  one  has 
an  opportunity  which  rarely  occurs  in  archaeological 
work  of  seeing,  though  in  reverse  order,  all  the  various 
details  of  its  erection.  Thus  very  many  of  the  blocks 
bore  on  their  backs  "mason's  marks"  scrawlingly  writ- 
ten in  red  ochre,  while  a  great  patch  of  the  paint  itself 
was  found  in  the  sand  just  north  of  the  tomb  where  it 
had  been  thrown.  At  the  backs  of  the  walls,  too,  the 
mortar  bore  the  hardened  imprints  of  the  fingers  of  the 
workmen  as  distinctly  as  on  the  day  when  the  blocks 
had  been  placed  in  position,  while  in  some  cases  little 
wooden  wedges  still  in  sound  condition  remained  where 
they  had  been  driven  into  the  back  of  a  joint  to  bring 
some  imperfectly  fitting  block  to  a  proper  bearing. 
Such  realistic  traces  of  the  work  of  the  ancient  builders 
go  far  in  the  imagination  to  bridge  the  ages  that  have 
passed,  as  was  the  case  particularly  when  we  found 
under  the  remains  of  the  plaster  and  mud  flooring  of 
the  offering-chamber  the  scattered  shells  of  a  number 
of  nuts  which  some  workman  had  had  for  his  luncheon 
on  the  day  he  was  laying  the  floor. 

PACKING  OF  THE  BLOCKS 

The  method  which  we  followed  in  the  removal  and 
packing  of  the  blocks  was  in  outline  as  follows:  Plans 
to  a  scale  of  i :  20  were  made  of  the  face  of  each  wall, 
showing  the  blocks  of  which  it  was  composed,  and  to 
each  block  was  assigned  a  number,  which  was  painted 
upon  its  back  as  fast  as  this  was  exposed  in  the  clearing. 
In  this  way  their  position  was  recorded  for  the  exact 

36 


HISTORY    AND  CONSTRUCTION 

reconstruction  of  the  walls  in  the  Museum.  More- 
over, a  careful  photographic  record  was  made  through- 
out the  various  stages  of  the  work,  and  a  series  of 
more  than  four  hundred  negatives  was  obtained  of  the 
constructive  features  of  the  tomb.    With  certain  excep- 


FIG.  24.     WRAPPING  AND  PACKING  BLOCKS 

tions,  none  of  the  blocks  gave  particular  difficulty  by 
their  weight  in  the  work  of  removing  them,  for  even  the 
larger  ones  could  generally  be  lifted  out  of  position  by 
five  or  six  workmen.  But  it  was  a  different  problem  in 
the  case  of  the  roofing-blocks  of  the  chambers,  and 
especially  the  great  lintel-block,  weighing  at  least  a  ton 
and  a  half,  which  spanned  the  main  doorway.  These 
were  slowly  raised  by  means  of  heavy  wooden  levers 
and  finally  dragged  away  by  a  line  of  twenty  to  thirty 
men,  pulling  together  in  unison  and  encouraged  by  the 
refrain  of  some  stirring  native  song.    It  was  in  this  self- 

37 


THE    TOMB    OF  PERNEB 

same  manner  that  these  blocks  were  brought  to  the  site 
and  handled  in  ancient  times,  but  this  is  only  one  of 
many  similar  instances  in  Egypt  today  in  which  the 
natives  still  go  on  working  with  the  same  primitive 
methods  and  with  no  thought  of  using  modern  ap- 
pliances of  any  kind. 

As  the  workmen  dug  out  the  core-filling  of  chip  and 
gravel  and  each  course  in  turn  was  exposed,  the  blocks 
were  removed  and  laid  upon  a  flat-car  which  carried 
them  to  a  point  outside  the  excavations  westward. 
Here  native  carpenters  and  their  assistants,  engaged 
from  neighboring  villages  in  the  valley,  were  occupied  in 
making  the  boxes,  while  camels  were  bringing  the  sup- 
plies of  lumber  and  packing  materials  which  were  being 
sent  out  from  Cairo  day  by  day  whenever  our  stock 
showed  signs  of  depletion.  A  special  group  of  men  was 
assigned  to  the  work  of  packing.  Those  blocks  which 
had  sculptured  or  painted  faces  were  specially  prepared 
beforehand  by  carefully  covering  those  surfaces  with 
tissue  paper  and  cotton  held  firmly  in  position  by  band- 
aging. The  larger  blocks  were  packed  separately,  one 
in  a  box,  but  in  most  cases  a  box  could  hold  two  of  the 
blocks  without  too  great  weight  for  transport  by  camel. 

TRANSPORT  OF  THE  BOXES 

Each  night  about  midnight  the  results  of  the  day's 
packing  were  loaded  on  to  some  fifteen  to  twenty  camels 
and  started  on  their  way  to  Cairo,  where  the  boxes  were 
deposited  in  the  yard  of  the  Cairo  Museum  in  good  time 
in  the  morning.  Finally,  after  two  months,  when  the 
work  ended  on  one  of  the  last  days  of  May,  there 
remained  about  seventy  boxes  containing  the  larger 

}8 


HISTORY    AND  CONSTRUCTION 

blocks  of  too  great  weight  to  be  carried  by  camels. 
These  were  loaded  on  a  train  of  ten  flat-cars,  specially 
adapted  to  the  purpose,  which  were  sent  out  from  the 
Cairo  Museum  through  the  kindness  of  the  Director 
General  of  Antiquities.    In  the  charge  of  a  native  rets 


FIG.  25.     CAMELS  BRINGING  LUMBER  AND  PACKING  MATERIALS 


and  twenty  men,  these  cars  had  been  shipped  from 
Cairo  by  rail  to  Bedrachein,  a  station  on  the  railway  in 
the  valley,  about  four  miles  from  Sakkara.  After  being 
unloaded  at  Bedrachein  this  little  train  had  been  hauled 
along  the  top  of  irrigation  dikes  across  to  the  edge  of 
the  desert  and  then  up  the  slope  of  the  Sakkara  plateau 
to  the  cemetery.  Progress  was  necessarily  slow,  for  the 
cars  ran  on  rails  fastened  together  in  sections  which  had 
to  be  constantly  brought  forward  in  turn  from  behind 
the  train  and  laid  before  it  again  as  it  advanced. 

When  loaded  with  our  heavy  boxes  it  took  the  train 

39 


THE    TOMB    OF  PERNEB 


a  week  to  make  the  return  journey  to  Bedrachein,  but 
once  there  they  were  shipped  by  railway  into  the  yard 
of  the  Cairo  Museum.  The  total  number  of  boxes 
which  we  finally  assembled  there,  containing  the  blocks 
of  Perneb's  tomb,  was  six  hundred  and  one.  These 


FIG.  26.      LOADING  HEAVIER   BOXES  ON  CARS 

were  afterwards  sent  down  by  railway  to  Suez,  where 
they  were  finally  shipped  in  two  separate  lots  on  steam- 
ers sailing  through  the  Canal  direct  to  New  York. 


ARRIVAL  AT  THE  MUSEUM  AND  TREATMENT  FOR 
PRESERVATION 

The  shipments  reached  the  Museum  in  August  (191  3), 
and  then  for  the  period  of  a  year  the  blocks  were  carried 
through  a  process  of  treatment  for  the  preservation  both 
of  the  stone  and  of  the  color  on  the  painted  reliefs.  All 

40 


HISTORY    AND  CONSTRUCTION 

Egyptian  limestone  contains,  in  varying  quantity,  cer- 
tain salts  which,  in  the  dry  climate  of  Egypt,  remain 
practically  inactive,  but  with  the  humidity  which  char- 
acterizes our  own,  are  likely,  if  they  exist  in  the  stone  to 
any  considerable  degree,  to  cause  its  disintegration 


FIG.  27.     TRAIN   READY  TO  LEAVE  SAKKARA 


within  a  comparatively  few  years,  and  in  some  cases 
within  a  corresponding  number  of  months.  The  prob- 
lem as  to  the  best  method  to  be  followed  in  any  particu- 
lar case  is  by  no  means  an  easy  one  and  for  many  years 
the  authorities  of  some  of  the  older  museums  abroad 
have  been  engaged  in  a  very  careful  study  of  the  matter. 
When  the  Egyptian  department  of  this  Museum  was 
created  in  1906  and  its  expedition  was  sent  to  Egypt  to 
begin  the  work  of  excavation  there,  the  problem  almost 
immediately  became  a  serious  one  to  us  because  of  the 

41 


THE    TOMB    OF  PERNEB 

unusually  large  amount  of  limestone  relief-sculpture 
yielded  by  the  work  in  the  pyramid-field  at  Lisht. 
Treatment  of  the  stone  by  some  of  the  older  methods 
did  not  prove  entirely  satisfactory  and,  accordingly,  for 
some  five  years  a  chemist  was  employed  in  the  depart- 
ment in  carrying  out  experiments  in  the  use  of  other 
mediums  than  those  previously  employed.  Experience 
has  proved  that,  if  the  fibre  of  the  stone  is  strong  enough, 
the  method  to  be  preferred  is  that  of  immersing  the 
blocks  in  water  until  the  salts  have  been  removed  in 
solution,  and  thus  the  stone  is  freed  of  these  destructive 
agents  for  good  and  all.  But  this  cannot  be  done  with- 
out first  subjecting  the  sculptured  or  painted  surfaces  to 
treatment  which  will  enable  them  to  withstand  the 
action  of  the  water  during  the  long  period  that  the  block 
may  be  immersed.  Our  experiments  on  this  side  have 
produced  very  satisfactory  results  and  under  ordinary 
conditions  this  process  would  have  been  employed  in 
the  case  of  Perneb's  tomb.  It  was  seen  to  be  impossi- 
ble, however,  owing  to  the  liberal  use  which  had  been 
made  of  plaster  on  the  faces  of  the  painted  blocks,  in 
order  to  fill  out  and  conceal  imperfections  in  the  stone, 
over  which  the  color  had  afterwards  been  applied. 
These  blocks  would  have  been  injured  by  immersion, 
and  so  the  exactly  opposite  process  was  adopted  of 
treating  the  entire  surfaces  of  the  blocks  in  such  a  way 
as  to  "bottle  up"  the  salts  and  prevent  the  air  from 
getting  access  to  them. 

RE-ERECTION  OF  THE  TOMB  IN  THE  MUSEUM 

While  this  work  was  being  carried  through  during  the 
winter  of  191 3-14,  preparations  were  begun  for  the 

42 


HISTORY    AND  CONSTRUCTION 

re-erection  of  the  tomb.  The  position  which  had  been 
chosen  was  in  the  large  gallery  known  as  D4  at  the 
northern  end  of  the  Fifth  Avenue  Hall,  one  of  the  few 
galleries  in  the  Egyptian  department  which  afforded 
possibilities  for  the  purpose     Here,  back  of  the  north- 


FIG.  28.     HAULING  TRAIN   IN  THE  DESERT 


ern  wall  of  the  room,  advantage  could  be  taken  of  an 
interior  courtyard  in  the  Museum,  where,  by  breaking 
through  the  wall,  a  special  building  could  be  constructed 
to  house  the  main  offering-chamber  and  the  serdab. 
The  expense  of  this  construction  in  the  courtyard,  as 
well  as  of  structural  changes  which  were  necessary  in 
the  gallery  itself,  was  again  generously  borne  by  Mr. 
Harkness. 

In  August,  1914,  the  re-erection  of  the  facade  and 
chambers  was  begun,  and  was  successfully  brought  to 

43 


THE    TOMB    OF  PERNEB 


completion  at  the  beginning  of  February,  19 16.  In 
rebuilding  the  tomb  a  few  changes  have  been  made  at 
certain  points  in  the  structure,  which  were  rendered 
necessary  in  order  to  adapt  it  to  its  present  surroundings 
or  more  readily  to  permit  the  entrance  of  visitors  to  its 
chambers.  Thus,  the  main  doorway  in  the  facade  has 
been  widened  about  ten  inches  over  its  original  width 
of  one  foot  ten  and  one-half  inches,  and,  on  account  of 
the  thickness  at  this  point  of  a  wall  of  the  Museum 
which  this  doorway  pierces,  the  entrance  passage  into 
the  vestibule  has  been  lengthened  four  feet  three  inches. 
The  doorway  between  the  vestibule  and  main  chamber 
has  also  been  widened  six  and  one-half  inches.  A  num- 
ber of  blocks,  taken  for  the  purpose  from  other  parts  of 
the  tomb  which  were  not  to  be  re-erected,  have  been 
introduced  into  the  uppermost  courses  of  the  facade,  to 
take  the  place  of  the  missing  ones  stripped  from  these 
courses  in  ancient  times.  The  reproduction  of  the 
south  chamber  and  the  serdab  has  been  carried  out  in 
plaster  blocks,  following  as  closely  as  possible  the  origi- 
nal arrangement  of  the  courses  in  their  walls,  and,  in 
order  to  illustrate  the  manner  in  which  the  portrait- 
statues  of  the  deceased  occur  in  these  tombs,  a  cast  of 
another  statue  found  in  a  Sakkara  tomb,  and  now  in  the 
Cairo  Museum,  has  been  placed  in  the  serdab  in  the 
position  occupied  by  the  missing  wooden  statue  of 
Perneb  destroyed  by  the  ancient  plunderers.  Also  in 
the  entrance-doorway  in  the  north  wing  a  wooden  door 
has  been  hung,  which  has  been  reproduced  from  the 
representation  of  a  door  on  the  walls  of  a  contemporary 
tomb  at  Gizeh  and  from  known  facts  regarding  their 
details. 


44 


HISTORY    AND  CONSTRUCTION 

Thus,  this  tomb  of  Perneb,  the  most  imposing  monu- 
ment that  has  come  to  any  museum  from  Egypt,  may 
be  said  both  to  illustrate  in  an  unusually  complete 
degree  the  massiveness  and  dignity  of  thefunerary  archi- 
tecture of  the  ancient  Egyptians,  and  at  the  same  time, 
in  the  fortunate  preservation  of  its  brilliantly  painted 
walls,  to  express  something  of  that  gaiety  of  color  with 
which  the  sombreness  of  the  tomb  was  tempered  in 
their  minds. 

Albert  M.  Lythgoe. 


45 


THE  TOMB  OF  PERNEB 
CHAPTER  II 

A  STUDY  OF  THE  DECORATIVE 
AND   INSCRIPTIONAL  FEATURES 
OF  THE  TOMB 


CHAPTER  II 


THE  FIGURES  ON  THE  FACADE 

HE  ancient  visitor  to  Perneb's  tomb  was  greeted 


at  the  very  doorway  by  figures  of  the  great  man 


A  carved  in  low  relief  and  representing  him  in  the 
full  dress  of  an  Egyptian  of  high  rank  (figs.  30  and  31). 
To  the  immediate  survivors  these  sculptured  figures 
must  have  been  a  startling  reminder  of  the  appearance 
of  the  departed  nobleman  as  they  had  often  seen  him  in 
life,  issuing,  staff  in  hand,  from  the  door  of  his  house. 
Even  the  features,  with  the  slightly  arched  nose  and 
firmly  modeled  mouth,  while  not  a  detailed  portrait, 
were  strongly  reminiscent  of  the  proud  and  noble  coun- 
tenance of  the  deceased  grandee.  The  impression  of  his 
presence  there  before  them  must  have  been  the  more 
vivid  in  that  among  the  complex  and  often  contradic- 
tory views  about  the  life  after  death  was  the  belief  that 
the  departed  could  walk  forth  from  the  tomb  to  revisit 
familiar  haunts  as  freely  as  in  the  past  he  had  gone  in 
and  out  of  his  earthly  house. 

While  the  conception  underlying  these  figures  is  of 
the  deceased  just  leaving  or  entering  his  dwelling,  the 


49 


THE    TOMB    OF  PERNEB 

theme  was  treated  with  regard  for  decorative  effect  and 
with  that  feeling  for  balance  which  is  particularly  char- 
acteristic of  Egyptian  composition.  We  have  Perneb 
represented  not  once,  but  twice,  in  figures  which  are 
nearly  symmetrical  rather  than  repetitions  of  each 
other.  Both  figures  are  directed  toward  the  door.  The 
staff  in  one  instance  is  in  Perneb's  left  hand,  in  the  other 
in  his  right;  it  is  the  left  foot  which  is  advanced  in  one 
figure,  the  right  foot  in  the  other,  thus  keeping  in  ad- 
vance the  limbs  which  are  the  more  distant  from  the 
eye.  The  symmetrical  arrangement  was  doubtless  ex- 
tended, following  the  usual  scheme,  to  the  vertical  lines 
of  hieroglyphs,  now  almost  obliterated,  in  which,  above 
the  figures,  the  long  list  of  titles  of  the  dead  man  was 
recorded.  The  hieroglyphs  were  so  placed  that  all  the 
birds,  animals,  and  human  figures  faced  the  doorway, 
with  the  result  that,  on  one  side,  the  columns  and  the 
individual  signs  must  be  read  in  the  order  from  left  to 
right,  on  the  other  side,  in  the  order  from  right  to  left. 
Indeed,  few  forms  of  writing  lend  themselves  to  use  in 
decoration  so  readily  as  did  the  Egyptian  on  account 
of  the  pictorial  character  of  its  signs  and  the  fact  that 
it  could  be  written  vertically,  horizontally,  from  the 
right,  or  from  the  left.  The  figures  of  Perneb  face  the 
doorway,  not,  we  may  be  sure,  to  particularize  that  the 
deceased  is  in  the  act  of  entering  the  tomb,  but  because 
the  front  of  the  figure  with  its  more  open  composition 
looked  better  turned  toward  the  opening  and  the  sturdy, 
almost  closed  outline  of  the  back  better  toward  the 
unbroken  stretches  of  the  facade. 

The  figures  exhibit  many  faults  of  drawing — the  eye 
placed  in  front  view  when  it  should  be  in  profile;  the 

50 


DECORATION    AND  INSCRIPTIONS 

outer  side  of  the  foot  drawn  as  the  inner  side,  with  only 
the  great  toe  showing;  the  unnatural  grasp  of  the  hand 
on  the  staff  and  the  confusion  in  the  position  of  the 
thumbs  in  the  figure  looking  to  the  left;  and  especially 
the  twisting  of  the  figures  due  to  rendering  the  shoulders 
in  front  view,  the  trunk  of  the  body  in  three-quarters' 
view,  and  the  legs  and  head  in  profile.  All  these  obvi- 
ous departures  from  familiar  canons  are  too  apt  to  blind 
the  untrained  modern  observer  to  the  simple  dignity  of 
conception,  beauty  of  line,  and  fitness  as  architectural 
decoration  of  much  of  this  early  work.  It  is  surprising, 
however,  how  soon  the  eye  becomes  accustomed  to  the 
Egyptian  conventions  and  ceases  to  be  disturbed  by 
them.  What  wonder,  then,  that  the  average  Egyptian, 
who  knew  no  other  way,  found  in  them  an  entirely  lucid 
and  satisfying  representation  of  the  human  form!  We 
cannot  in  this  brief  consideration  go  into  the  difficult 
and  fascinating  inquiry  as  to  how  the  minds  of  the  men 
who  set  the  standards  for  drawing  operated,  but  it  is 
well  to  recall  the  fact  that  the  early  Egyptians  had  no 
precedents  to  influence  them,  no  wealth  of  inheritance 
from  past  civilizations  to  affect  their  own  way  of  analyz- 
ing and  of  recording  what  they  saw  about  them.  Their 
conventions,  once  established,  were  cherished  and 
handed  down  in  the  schools  with  characteristic  con- 
servatism. Yet  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  suppose  that 
Egyptian  wall-decorations  are  all  monotonously  uni- 
form. The  figures  before  us  are  typical  of  the  formal 
and  correct  way  of  representing  important  personages, 
which  was  only  slightly  modified  as  time  went  on;  here 
and  there,  however,  among  minor  figures,  where  the 
accepted  standards  held  less  rigidly,  one  finds  interesting 

51 


FIG.  30.     FIGURE  OF  PERNEB  ON  THE  FACADE  TO  THE  LEFT  OF 
THE  DOORWAY 


FIG.  31. 


FIGURE  OF  PERNEB  ON  THE  FACADE  TO  THE  RIGHT  OF 
THE  DOORWAY 


THE    TOMB    OF  PERNEB 

experiments  in  drawing,  such  as  a  shoulder  sketched 
from  the  side,  showing  that  bolder  spirits  among  the 
draughtsmen  were  groping  for  other  methods;  and  in 
the  subtler  qualities  of  style  there  are  changes  from 
generation  to  generation  which  render  the  reliefs  of  the 
different  periods,  and  of  the  various  schools  of  decora- 
tors, full  of  individual  interest  and  charm. 

The  costume  of  the  figures  does  not  impress  one  today 
as  especially  elaborate,  yet  it  presents  certain  refine- 
ments as  compared  with  the  dress  of  the  humbler  folk 
of  the  time.  The  one  garment  is  a  kilt  of  white  linen 
reaching  barely  to  the  knees  and  extending  in  front  in  a 
triangular  projection  which  it  would  seem  must  have 
been  held  in  shape  by  some  kind  of  starch  or  support. 
A  more  awkward  style  can  hardly  be  imagined,  as  the 
fullness  in  front  was  much  in  the  way  especially  when 
the  person  was  seated.  The  costume  includes,  besides 
the  kilt,  sandals  on  the  feet,  a  broad  collar  made  up  of 
rows  of  cylindrical  beads  and  finished  along  the  lower 
edge  with  beetle-like  pendants,  a  wig  covering  the  ears 
and  extending  down  on  the  shoulders,  a  short  false 
beard  on  the  chin,  and  an  amulet  or  decoration  sus- 
pended about  the  neck  by  a  cord  on  which  cylindrical 
beads  are  strung  at  wide  intervals,  leaving  the  cord 
visible  between  the  beads.  The  amulet — or  decoration, 
as  the  case  may  be — imitates  in  form  a  knot  of  cloth, 
and  was  probably  cut  in  some  hard  stone.  The  same 
knot  occurs  among  Egyptian  hieroglyphs,  but  its  sig- 
nificance when  thus  worn  is  lost  to  us.  The  beads  com- 
posing the  collar  and  those  strung  on  the  cord  were  of 
semi-precious  stones  and  gold,  or  of  the  less  expensive 
materials,  glazed  and  gilded  compositions  having  the 

54 


DECORATION    AND  INSCRIPTIONS 

appearance  of  the  stones  and  gold.  The  object  in  the 
lowered  hand  is  a  long,  narrow  piece  of  white  linen 
folded  over.  It  is  carried  only  by  men  in  the  higher 
stations  of  life,  but  is  hardly  an  insigne  of  rank;  we  may 
with  greater  probability  imagine  Perneb  wiping  his  brow 
with  it  or  using  it  to  flirt  the  ever-annoying  flies  away! 

DATE  OF  PERNEB'S  ACTIVITY 

It  would  be  interesting  to  know  which  of  the  mon- 
archs  of  Egypt  Perneb  served,  but  we  can  only  say  that 
it  was  one  of  the  later  kings  of  the  Fifth  Dynasty,  and 
that  his  activity  probably  fell  mostly  or  entirely  within 
the  twenty-seventh  century  before  Christ.  This  opin- 
ion is  based  on  a  number  of  bits  of  evidence,  among 
them  a  quarry  mark  on  one  of  the  largest  of  the  lintel 
blocks,  giving  the  name  "  Ankhisesy."  Building  mate- 
rial was  marked  in  the  quarries,  usually  with  the  name 
of  the  person  for  whose  tomb  it  was  intended,  that  there 
might  be  no  mistake  in  delivery  (see  Perneb's  own 
quarry  mark,  fig.  32).  In  this  instance,  either  by  error 
or  gift,  the  block  got  diverted  to  Perneb's  use.  Ankh- 
isesy — "Isesy  lives" — must  have  been  born  in  the 
reign  of  King  Isesy,  next  to  the  last  of  the  Fifth  Dynasty 
kings,  or  he  would  not  have  been  so  named,  and  he  is 
probably  to  be  identified  with  the  "king's  son,  Ankh- 
isesy,"  whose  tomb  was  not  far  distant  from  that  of 
Perneb. 

TITLES  ON  THE  LINTEL  IN  THE  ENTRANCE  PASSAGE 

For  the  visitor  to  the  tomb  who  did  not  pause  to 
read  the  long  inscriptions  on  the  facade,  the  name  and 
two  principal  titles  of  Perneb  were  made  evident  on  the 

55 


THE   TOMB    OF  PERNEB 

lintel  (fig.  33)  at  the  inner  end  of  the  entrance  passage, 
just  above  the  opening  into  the  first  chamber.  They 
are  inscribed  in  large  ornamental  hieroglyphs,  the  colors 
of  which  were  originally  much  stronger  before  the  drift- 
ing sand  wore  away  part  of  the  paint.  The  inscription 
exemplifies  well  the  monumental  decorative  style  of 
writing  as  contrasted  with  the  cursive  of  ordinary  use, 
represented  in  the  quarry  mark  of  figure  32.  This  short 
inscription  is  written  from  right  to  left  in  what  was  the 
normal  direction  when  no  considerations  of  composition 
imposed  another.  The  first  four  signs  compose  the 
title  "Sole  Companion, "  which  denoted  a  rank  at  court. 
When  work  on  the  tomb  began,  Perneb  was  only  a 
"Companion/'  as  the  quarry  marks  present  on  the 
majority  of  the  blocks  of  the  facade  and  chambers  attest 
(fig.  32),  but  by  the  time  the  decoration  was  in  progress 
he  had  risen  to  the  higher  rank.  The  title  "Sole  Com- 
panion" of  the  monarch,  whatever  its  origin  may  have 
been,  was  not  at  this  time  understood  in  any  literal 
sense,  but  was  borne  by  a  large  proportion  of  the  higher 
officials  and  men  of  distinction  of  the  day.  It  seems 
especially  appropriate  to  Perneb,  however,  for  he  occu- 
pied a  somewhat  intimate  position  in  the  king's  house- 
hold. The  next  two  signs,  intervening  between  "Sole 
Companion"  and  the  last  four,  which  spell  the  name, 
give  a  hint  of  his  real  occupation  in  life;  we  may  render 
them  freely  "Lord  Chamberlain";  literally  they  mean 
" Palace- Leader"  and  the  word  used  for  "palace"  is 
that  which  denotes  the  inner  private  living-rooms  of  the 
king  and  his  family,  as  distinct  from  the  public  rooms 
where  he  held  audience  and  conducted  the  business  of 
the  realm. 

56 


DECORATION    AND  INSCRIPTIONS 


SCENE  IN  THE  VESTIBULE 

The  scene  on  the  farther  wall  of  the  first  small  cham- 
ber, or  vestibule,  was  one  to  recall  to  the  visitor  Perneb's 
private  activities  when  on  earth  (fig.  34).    He  is  repre- 


FIG.  32.     QUARRY  MARK,  ""THE  COMPANION,  PERNEB,"  IN 
CURSIVE  WRITING 


sented  inspecting  the  cattle  and  produce  which  are 
being  brought  to  his  tomb,  as  the  legend  in  the  first  of 
the  vertical  columns  of  hieroglyphs  (counting  from  the 
right)  makes  clear:  "Looking  at  the  gifts  brought  from 


FIG.  33.  INSCRIPTION,  "THE  SOLE  COMPANION,  THE  LORD 
CHAMBERLAIN,    PERNEB,"    IN   ORNAMENTAL  HIEROGLYPHS 


the  villages  of  the  North  and  the  South. "  Even  so  he 
must  have  appeared  in  life  when  his  servants  bore  him 
out  in  his  litter  to  review  the  work  on  his  estate  and 
receive  the  reports  of  his  accountants.    The  litter  has 

57 


THE    TOMB    OF  PERNEB 

been  set  down  on  the  ground  and  a  scribe  holds  an  open 
papyrus  roll  before  the  master;  two  other  accountants 
follow  with  their  reports  under  their  arms,  while  the 
writing  utensils  are  deposited  on  the  ground.  In  two 
of  the  registers  cattle  are  being  led  forward  for  inspec- 
tion; the  powerful  animals  are  controlled  by  ropes 
passed  under  the  lower  jaw,  through  the  mouth,  and 
several  times  about  the  neck.  But  the  oryx  which 
appears  at  the  top  of  the  wall  was  gentle  enough  to  be 
guided  by  the  attendant's  grasp  on  his  horns  and  muz- 
zle. The  third  register  counting  from  above  contains  a 
representation  of  Perneb's  wife  and  sons.  The  wife  was 
of  nobler  birth  than  her  lord,  being  a  "King's  Descen- 
dant," but  her  name  is  not  recorded.  Behind  her  are 
"his  eldest  son,  the  priest  Userneter,"  and  "his  son 
Shepsesre."  There  are  reasons  for  believing  that  the 
sons  may  be  identical  with  the  Shepsesre  and  Userneter 
whose  tombs  were  in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  Perneb's 
(see  map,  fig.  2).  Mother  and  sons  are  crouched  on  the 
ground  in  characteristic  Oriental  postures  and  their 
subservience  to  the  head  of  the  family  is  emphasized  by 
the  disparity  in  the  size  of  their  figures.  Perneb  himself 
is  comfortably  ensconced  on  a  low  seat  which  scarcely 
raises  him  above  the  floor  of  the  litter;  a  cushion,  the 
end  of  which  is  thrown  over  the  back  of  the  seat,  con- 
tributes to  his  ease,  one  hand  rests  on  the  high  arm  of 
the  seat,  his  knees  are  drawn  up  to  his  breast,  and  he  is 
protected  from  the  hot  sun  by  a  canopy  roof  and  side 
curtain  of  matting.  He  appears  here  in  morning  dress, 
for  he  wears  a  plain,  tight-fitting  kilt  and  has  left  off  his 
wig  and  false  beard,  exposing  his  closely  cropped  hair. 
The  five  short,  vertical  lines  of  writing  above  the  lit— 

58 


FIG.  34.  PRELIMINARY  SKETCH,  PERNEB   INSPECTING  GIFTS  OF 
ESTATES  OF  THE  NORTH  AND  SOUTH 


THE    TOMB    OF  PERNEB 

ter  give  our  dignitary's  titles  and  epithets  in  full:  "Sole 
Companion,  Chief  Nekhebite,  Keeper  of  the  Crowns, 
Privy  Counsellor  of  the  Duat-Bureau,  He  who  Decks 
the  King,  Favorite  of  His  Lord,  Privy  Counsellor  of  All 
Messages,  In  Honor  before  the  Great  God."  Keeping 
the  crowns  and  decking  the  king  were  among  his  pre- 
rogatives as  "Lord  Chamberlain";  the  nature  of  the 
Duat-bureau  has  yet  to  be  investigated,  but  it  may  well 
have  had  to  do  with  the  administration  of  the  king's 
private  estate  rather  than  with  public  affairs,  while 
"Chief  Nekhebite"  was  an  old  and  honorable  priestly 
title  which  had  its  origin  in  Nekheb,  the  capital  of  the 
South,  before  the  union  of  all  Egypt  under  one  king. 

It  has  been  pointed  out  that  Perneb's  tomb  was  never 
finished  (p.  19),  and  this  fact  is  obvious  in  the  outer 
chamber.  The  scene  we  have  been  considering  is  in- 
complete; we  have  merely  the  head  of  the  trains  of  men 
leading  animals  and  bearing  produce,  and  the  main  part 
of  the  procession  would  have  been  continued  on  the 
adjacent  wall  to  the  right;  very  likely  the  other  wall 
spaces  within  the  vestibule  and  the  sides  of  the  entrance 
passage,  too,  would  not  have  remained  bare  had  the 
decoration  of  the  tomb  been  carried  out  as  first  planned. 
Then  in  technic  the  wall  before  us  exhibits  the  combina- 
tion of  a  preliminary  sketch  in  red  line,  intended  as  a 
guide  for  sculpture  in  low  relief,  and  some  washes  of 
solid  color,  evidently  put  on  rather  hastily  to  give  a 
semblance  of  finish  when  it  appeared  that  the  original 
scheme  of  decoration  must  be  abandoned. 

We  may  congratulate  ourselves,  however,  on  the 
mischance  that  prevented  the  completion  of  the  tomb, 
for  it  has  been  the  means  of  saving  to  our  day  this 

60 


DECORATION    AND  INSCRIPTIONS 

masterly  sketch  by  an  early  Egyptian  artist.  The 
work  has  a  fascination  comparable  to  that  exercised  by 
the  drawings  of  the  old  Italian  masters,  delighting  one's 
aesthetic  sense  by  its  confident  and  firm  strokes  and  its 
freedom  from  puttering  or  merely  painstaking  lines.  It 
brings  one  nearer  to  the  genius  of  the  leaders  of  art  in 
the  remote  age  when  Perneb  lived  than  anything  to  be 
seen  in  the  finished  inner  room.  The  sketch  is  interest- 
ing, too,  in  what  it  teaches  of  the  artist's  methods,  for 
we  can  still  trace  the  perpendicular  lines  which  he  used 
as  a  help  in  drawing  the  majority  of  the  figures.  He 
was  not  slavishly  dependent  on  them,  however,  for 
other  figures  are  drawn  with  only  the  position  of  the 
toes  checked  on  the  ground  line  (see  two  top  registers), 
and  the  animals  are  sketched  in  boldly  without  a  pre- 
liminary mark  of  any  kind. 

DECORATION  OF  THE  PASSAGE  BETWEEN  THE  VESTIBULE 
AND  THE  MAIN  CHAMBER 

The  figures  on  the  walls  of  the  passage  between  the 
two  rooms  personify  estates,  which  were  to  furnish  in 
perpetuity  the  Lord  Chamberlain's  mortuary  income 
(see  p.  10).  We  have  here  only  another  treatment  of 
the  theme  which  we  found  represented  in  the  outer 
chamber  and  shall  encounter  again  in  the  main  cham- 
ber, namely,  that  of  the  all-important  provision  for  the 
material  wants  of  the  dead  man.  These  figures  are 
walking  in  the  direction  of  the  inner  room  and  bear  in 
baskets,  or  in  the  hand,  jars  of  beer,  joints  of  meat,  live 
birds,  and  other  good  things.  In  front  of  them  are 
written  the  names  of  the  estates  which  they  represent, 
such  as  "Figs  of  the  Companion,  Perneb,"  "Onions  of 

6i 


THE    TOMB    OF  PERNEB 

the  Companion,  Perneb"  (right-hand  wall,  upper  regis- 
ter), names  made  up  apparently  of  the  word  expressing 
the  product  for  which  the  estate  was  chiefly  noted  and 
"  Perneb"  to  distinguish  the  estate  as  belonging  to  him. 
The  sex  of  the  figures  was  determined  by  the  grammati- 
cal gender  of  the  names,  and  the  decorator  usually  pro- 
vided some  slight  correspondence  between  the  objects 
borne  and  the  names;  thus,  the  two  estate-figures  just 
mentioned  have  among  their  produce  respectively  a 
trayful  of  figs  and  a  bunch  of  onions,  but  "  Bat-grain  of 
Perneb"  is  bringing  the  grain  made  up  in  loaves  of 
bread,  if  she  carries  it  at  all. 

As  in  the  outer  chamber,  so  here,  the  work  was  pre- 
maturely interrupted,  with  the  result  that  we  have 
before  us  preliminary  sketches  daubed  over  with  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  paint.  Again  we  are  able  to  see  the 
draughtsman's  construction  lines;  here  it  was  desirable 
to  bring  the  figures  of  the  upper  and  lower  rows  in 
alignment  and  therefore  perpendiculars  were  dropped 
from  the  horizontal  line  at  the  top  of  the  wall  to  the 
bottom  line.  The  draughtsman  then  checked  on  the 
perpendiculars  the  proportions  of  the  figures.  A  check 
may  be  seen,  for  instance,  on  the  second  figure  above  on 
the  right  of  the  passage  to  indicate  the  level  at  which 
the  wig  and  forehead  should  meet,  and  still  others  are 
visible;  but  many  must  be  lost  in  the  breaks  or  hidden 
by  the  paint.  Crudely  as  the  color  is  put  on,  the 
scheme  of  it  is  not  a  haphazard  one,  but  the  whole  com- 
position is  deliberately  arranged  to  afford  a  pleasing 
alternation.  Whether  regarded  in  a  horizontal  or  a 
vertical  direction,  the  red  of  the  male  figures  alternates 
with  the  yellow  flesh  tints  of  the  women,  while  white  on 

62 


DECORATION    AND  INSCRIPTIONS 

the  kilts  and  dresses  unites  all  the  figures  and  the 
greater  importance  of  the  horizontal  direction  is  empha- 
sized by  the  line  of  yellow  carried  through  one  register 
and  of  white  through  the  other  on  the  baskets  and 
trays. 

THE  MAIN  CHAMBER 

Once  within  the  main  chamber,  the  ancient  visitor 
would  have  turned  first  of  all  toward  the  farther  end 
wall,  the  "false  door,"  through  which  he  believed  that 
the  deceased  could  enter  the  room  at  will.  There,  if 
reverently  inclined,  he  would  have  felt  himself  indeed 
in  the  very  presence  of  the  departed  one  and  would  have 
uttered  some  of  the  prayers  for  the  dead  inscribed  on 
the  panels  of  the  door.  It  was  in  this  room,  too,  that 
formal  rites  for  the  benefit  of  the  deceased  were  per- 
formed by  the  mortuary  priests — not  once,  but  at  least 
on  every  important  feast  day.  The  rites  consisted  in 
large  part  of  placing  actual  beverages  and  articles  of 
food  on  the  low  offering-table  before  the  "false  door," 
accompanying  each  by  a  prescribed  incantation.  The 
entire  decoration  of  the  room  was  appropriate  to  its  use 
as  a  cult-chamber,  whether,  as  some  authorities  think, 
the  pictures  had  mystical  efficacy  and  could  take  the 
place  of  the  offerings  if  the  latter  should  fail  at  any 
time,  or  whether,  as  others  say,  they  were  only  the 
expression  of  the  artistic  impulse  and  were  selected 
much  as  a  symbolic  figure  of  justice  might  be  considered 
a  fitting  decoration  for  a  court  room. 

But  let  us  examine  the  walls,  beginning  with  the 
"false  door"  (fig.  35).  Four  small  figures  of  Perneb, 
similar  in  dress  and  pose  to  those  on  the  facade  of  the 

63 


THE    TOMB    OF  PERN'EB 

building,  flank  the  door  at  the  bottom  of  the  wall,  and 
the  vertically  written  inscriptions  here,  as  on  the  facade, 
are  alike  in  content  and  wording  on  the  two  sides  and 
have  the  signs  symmetrically  placed,  all  turned  toward 
the  door.  The  door  itself — the  innermost  recess — is 
very  narrow,  as  its  proportions  have  been  accommodated 
to  the  desire  to  leave  ample  space  for  vertical  lines  of 
hieroglyphs.  On  the  inner,  shorter  panels  occurs  the 
following  selection  of  Perneb's  titles,  ''Sole  Companion, 
Keeper  of  the  Crowns,  Chief  Nekhebite,  Daily  Favorite 
of  His  Lord,  Privy  Counsellor  of  the  Duat-Bureau,  He 
who  Wins  the  Favor  of  the  King  Daily."  The  signs  on 
the  small  rounded  lintel  block  above  the  narrow  door 
read  "Sole  Companion,  Perneb,"  while  on  the  wider 
lintel  with  flat  face  covering  the  inner  jambs,  or  panels, 
is  the  petition  that  Osiris  grant  mortuary  offerings  "at 
the  New  Year's  feast  (of  the  solar  year),  at  the  Feast  of 
Thoth,  at  the  New  Year's  feast  (of  the  civil  year),  at  the 
Wag-feast,  and  at  every  feast!"  On  the  outer,  taller 
panels,  besides  the  repetition  of  titles  before  Perneb's 
name,  is  a  prayer  to  Anubis  to  grant  that  he  may  "  tread 
the  goodly  paths  which  the  honorable  ones  (the  beatified 
dead)  tread"; on  the  topmost  lintel  the  prayer  is  again 
addressed  to  Anubis  and  relates  to  a  good  burial.  The 
space  between  the  lintels  surmounting  the  two  pairs  of 
jambs  is  nearly  filled  by  a  square  panel,  with  a  repre- 
sentation of  the  deceased  seated  before  an  offering-table, 
and  the  narrow  recesses  each  side  of  it  probably  corre- 
spond to  windows  in  the  house  facade. 

Turning  to  the  two  long  sides  of  the  room,  we  find 
compositions  which  are  closely  similar  to  each  other 
(fig.  36).    Nearest  the  "false  door,"  but  with  his  back 

64 


FIG.    35.     FALSE   DOOR   IN   MAIN    CHAMBER   INSCRIBED  WITH 
PRAYERS  FOR  THE  DECEASED  LORD  CHAMBERLAIN 


THE    TOMB    OF  PERNEB 

to  it,  is  a  large  figure  of  Perneb,  just  as  he  might  have 
come  forth  from  the  hidden  part  of  the  tomb  and  seated 
himself  expectantly  to  receive*  the  ministrations  of  the 
living.  Above  his  head  the  four  vertical  lines  of  larger 
hieroglyphs  give  his  titles,  which  vary  here  only  in  order 
and  in  small  points  of  orthography  from  the  lists  which 
have  been  quoted.  In  front  of  him  is  a  table  covered 
with  a  highly  conventionalized  representation  of  half- 
loaves  of  bread  and  under  it,  on  the  farther  side,  lies  a 
confused  heap  of  offerings  which,  like  those  crowding  the 
upper  registers  of  the  wall,  have  been  deposited  by  men 
approaching  from  the  direction  of  the  outer  door  of  the 
tomb,  while  other  men  are  still  bringing  in  the  supplies. 
Between  his  knees  and  the  table  is  written,  "A  thousand 
loaves  of  bread,  a  thousand  jars  of  beer,  a  thousand 
portions  of  beef,  a  thousand  portions  of  wild  fowl,  a 
thousand  changes  of  clothing'' — no  mean  petition,  but 
one  corresponding  well  with  the  opulence  of  the  offerings 
as  pictured  (see  fig.  37). 

The  rectangles  filled  with  hieroglyphs  occupying  the 
entire  area  above  the  offering-table  comprise  what  we 
may  term  facetiously  the  dead  man's  menu  card.  Each 
compartment  contains  the  name  of  an  offering  and  with 
a  few  exceptions,  like  "incense,"  the  offerings  are  arti- 
cles of  food;  beneath  each  item  the  vertical  strokes,  one, 
two,  or  four  in  number,  indicate  how  many  portions  he 
is  to  receive  of  each  thing.  But  the  menu  card  is  a  very 
special  one,  which  does  not  correspond  entirely  with  the 
menu  of  the  living,  for  it  excludes  some  kinds  of  food  as 
ceremonially  impure,  such,  for  instance,  as  fish,  which 
we  know  to  have  been  eaten  by  the  Egyptians.  It  does 
present,  however,  a  long  array  of  joints  of  meat,  birds, 

66 


THE    TOMB    OF  PERNEB 

drinks,  fruits,  and  loaves  of  bread  and  cake,  while  the 
pictured  offerings  tally  with  the  written  list,  although, 
out  of  consideration  for  artistic  effects,  not  in  any  rigid 
way.  The  offering-list  acquires  special  interest  from 
the  fact  that  it  is  found  also  on  the  walls  of  the  royal 
tombs  of  the  late  Fifth  and  Sixth  Dynasties  where  the 
various  items  are  enumerated  in  the  same  order  and 
quantity  as  here,  but  are  accompanied  by  the  words  of 
the  ritual  to  be  recited  over  each  offering.  It  was  the 
natural  desire  of  well-to-do  Egyptians  to  imitate,  so  far 
as  their  means  allowed  and  the  etiquette  of  the  day 
permitted,  the  splendid  funerary  equipment  of  the 
monarch.  Very  shortly  after  this  time  the  royal  ritual, 
too,  was  inscribed  in  the  tombs  of  private  Egyptians, 
and  it  is  possible  that  even  now  it  was  employed  in  the 
services  held  in  Perneb's  chapel. 

In  the  second  and  third  registers  from  the  bottom  the 
small  figures  nearest  to  that  of  Perneb  represent  priests 
performing  the  introductory  acts  of  the  service  (see 
fig.  37).  The  foremost  figure  in  the  second  register  lifts 
the  cover  from  the  incense-burner  to  let  the  fragrance 
escape  and  behind  him  another  priest  is  represented 
holding  up  two  strips  of  linen  which  we  may  recognize 
as  probably  the  same  thing  as  the  napkin  or  handker- 
chief held  in  the  hand  by  Perneb  both  in  this  scene  and 
in  the  majority  of  the  other  occurrences  of  his  figure. 
The  scene  above  depicts  the  washing  of  the  offering- 
table  and  behind  the  two  priests  engaged  in  this  cere- 
mony stands  the  lector,  on  the  one  wall  making  the 
correct  ceremonial  gesture  and  carrying  his  papyrus  roll 
of  texts  still  in  his  lowered  hand,  on  the  other  wall 
already  reading  from  the  roll  held  open  before  him. 

68 


FIG.  37.  DETAIL  FROM  SIDE  WALL   IN  MAIN  CHAMBER  SHOW- 
ING OFFERINGS  AND  PRIESTS  PERFORMING  CEREMONIES 


THE    TOMB    OF  PERNEB 

The  lector  is  distinguished  by  a  band  of  linen  passed 
diagonally  across  the  breast  over  one  shoulder  and  under 
the  other  arm  and  he  wears  a  wig  like  Perneb's,  but  the 
Other  participants  in  the  ceremonies  are  dressed  like  the 
offering-bearers  in  plain,  close-fitting  kilts  and  less  pre- 
tentious wigs  and  are  without  the  broad  collar  of  beads. 
At  this  time  the  Egyptian  priesthood  had  not  yet 
assumed  great  importance  as  a  special  class  but  was 
composed  of  lay  members  who  had  other  interests 
besides  their  duties  as  priests.  We  have  seen  that 
Perneb  bears  a  priestly  title  and  here  on  the  long  walls 
of  the  main  chamber  he  appears  in  his  priest's  costume, 
the  distinguishing  garment  of  which  is  a  leopard  skin 
held  in  place  by  bands  tied  on  one  shoulder. 

The  upper  part  of  the  wall  in  which  the  window  opens 
is  filled  with  the  representation  of  offerings  contained 
in  a  variety  of  receptacles  and  set,  some  on  stands, 
others  on  the  ground,  while  lower  down  on  the  wall 
oxen  are  being  led  to  the  tomb  or  are  being  slaugh- 
tered; we  see  the  butchers  sharpening  their  knives, 
severing  the  joints,  and  catching  the  blood  in  bowls. 
A  pleasing  motive  included  here,  as  well  as  on  the 
long  walls,  is  that  of  an  attendant  carrying  a  calf  or  a 
young  gazelle. 

THE  TECHNIC  OF  THE  DECORATION 

The  unusual  amount  of  color  remaining  today  on  the 
walls  of  the  main  chamber  affords  a  rare  opportunity  to 
study  the  technic  of  the  ancient  Egyptian  decorator. 
The  walls  are  in  just  the  condition  to  be  most  instruc- 
tive, for  enough  is  left  of  their  top  surface  to  enable  one 
tore-create  in  imagination  their  original  appearance,  and 

70 


DECORATION    AND  INSCRIPTIONS 

in  the  places  where  the  upper  pigments  have  dropped  off 
it  is  possible  to  trace  the  processes  of  the  work.  As  the 
walls  were  set  up  for  photography,  in  the  course  of  the 
preparation  for  the  final  installation  (see  p.  40),  every 
square  inch  of  their  surface  was  gone  over  with  a  magni- 
fying glass  in  the  endeavor  to  distinguish  the  different 
levels  of  the  paint  and  determine  as  far  as  possible  what 
the  decorators  did  first,  what  next,  and  so  on  through 
their  entire  procedure.  Only  a  summary  of  the  results 
of  this  study  will  be  of  interest  here. 

In  the  first  stage  of  the  work  a  preliminary  sketch, 
similar  in  character  to  those  seen  in  the  vestibule  and 
passage,  doubtless  covered  the  walls  of  the  main  cham- 
ber. As  the  Egyptian  draughtsman  at  this  time  was 
without  crayons  or  chalks  with  which  to  execute  his 
sketch,  he  was  obliged  to  use  liquid  paint  and  learned 
to  draw  without  making  erasures  and  with  little  correct- 
ing; he  employed  red  paint  for  sketches  rather  more 
commonly  than  black,  presumably  because  it  was 
cheaper  and  more  easily  prepared.  The  quarry  marks, 
too,  to  which  reference  has  been  made  above,  are  all  in 
the  same  brown-red  pigment,  which  indeed  is  still  used 
in  Egypt  for  common  purposes.  When  long  trains  of 
figures,  such  as  the  offering-bearers,  were  to  occupy  a 
wall,  it  was  customary  to  draw  not  only  perpendiculars 
for  each  figure  but  a  series  of  horizontal  guiding  lines 
passing  through  the  entire  register  and  cutting  the  per- 
pendiculars at  points  which  were  prescribed  in  the  sys- 
tem of  proportions  learned  by  every  young  apprentice. 
One  such  sketch  from  a  Fifth  Dynasty  tomb  is  shown 
in  the  accompanying  illustration,  fig.  38,  in  which,  how- 
ever, the  perpendiculars  present  on  the  original  have 

71 


THE   TOMB    OF  PERNEB 

been  omitted.  Sometimes,  as  on  the  walls  of  the  passage 
in  Perneb's  tomb,  the  prescribed  points  were  simply 
checked  on  the  perpendiculars  and  the  draughtsman 
spared  himself  the  trouble  of  drawing  horizontal  con- 
struction lines.  In  general,  it  may  be  said  that  the 
artist  at  this  time  was  less  dependent  on  aids  in  placing 
his  sketch  than  were  his  successors  in  later  generations. 
By  the  next  dynasty  we  find  an  additional  horizontal 
line  through  the  calves  of  the  legs,  not  as  yet  represented 
among  the  known  sketches  of  the  Fifth  Dynasty,  and  a 
few  hundred  years  later  an  elaborate  system  of  small 
squares,  spread  like  a  network  over  the  entire  register, 
was  developed  from  the  earlier  guiding  lines. 

Both  the  guiding  lines  and  the  sketched  figures  natu- 
rally disappeared  during  the  next  stage  of  the  work,  the 
cutting  of  the  design  in  low  relief.  In  a  few  exceptional 
places  on  the  walls  of  Perneb's  tomb,  however,  the 
background  was  left  at  the  original  level  and  fragments 
of  the  horizontal  guiding  lines  have  come  to  light  where 
the  covering  paint,  which  originally  rendered  the  casual 
workmanship  unnoticeable,  has  dropped  off.  Thus,  two 
such  lines  may  be  seen  plainly  on  the  wall  to  the  right 
between  the  priest  who  is  pouring  water  from  a  cere- 
monial vessel  and  the  kneeling  figure  (fig.  37). 

The  plaster  filling  along  the  joints  (see  p.  35)  pre- 
sented no  special  difficulties  to  the  knife  or  chisel,  but 
could  be  carved  as  readily  as  the  soft  limestone.  In- 
deed, entire  cult  chambers  decorated  in  plaster  reliefs 
have  been  found  at  Meir  in  Upper  Egypt.  In  carving 
the. walls  a  furrow  was  first  cut  outlining  the  design, 
then  the  background  was  lowered  and  the  figures  mod- 
eled.   The  quality  of  the  sculpture  in  Perneb's  tomb  is 

72 


DECORATION    AND  INSCRIPTIONS 

uneven,  being  poorest  at  the  ends  of  the  long  walls  away 
from  the  large  seated  figures,  where  the  design  here  and 


FIG.  38.     DETAIL   FROM    A    FIFTH    DYNASTY  TOMB  SHOWING 
HORIZONTAL   GUIDING  LINES 

AFTER  DAVIES,  THE  MASTABA  OF   PTAHHETEP  AND  AKHETHETEP  AT 
SAQQAREH,   II,    PL.  17 


there  is  merely  scratched  in.  Some  details  seem  to  have 
interested  the  sculptor  more  than  others;  certain  of  the 

73 


THE    TOMB    OF  PERNEB 

hieroglyphs  and,  for  instance,  the  calves'  heads  among 
the  offerings  are  extraordinarily  subtle  and  vivid. 

The  work  of  decoration  now  entered  upon  the  third 
and  last  stage,  that  of  coloring  the  reliefs.  It  was  not 
painting  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  term  as  denoting  a 
major  art,  for  the  colors  were  used  only  in  flat  tones  and 
the  decorator  relied  for  his  play  of  light  and  shade  on 
the  relief.  Shading  with  pigments  is  not,  however,  as 
some  of  the  commonly-used  handbooks  state,  unknown 
in  Egyptian  art,  because  in  ceiling  paintings  of  later 
date,  found  by  the  Museum's  Expedition,  the  rotundity 
of  the  bodies  of  flying  ducks  and  pigeons  clearly  is  indi- 
cated by  this  means. 

But  before  the  final  colors  could  be  added  to  the  walls 
of  Perneb's  tomb  a  number  of  preliminary  processes 
were  considered  essential.  After  the  sculptor  had  fin- 
ished his  part,  a  thin  layer  of  fine  plaster  was  added 
over  the  coarse  plaster  to  render  the  surface  of  the  latter 
uniform  in  texture  with  the  limestone,  and  then  the 
entire  wall  was  washed  over  with  a  still  thinner  coating 
of  white  gypsum,  which  may  be  detected  here  and  there 
as  a  film  capable  of  being  peeled  off,  or,  where  the  bind- 
ing medium — possibly  white  of  egg — has  deteriorated, 
as  a  white  powder. 

The  next  step  is  a  surprising  one.  Instead  of  pro- 
ceeding to  lay  the  final  colors,  using  the  sculptured  out- 
lines as  a  guide,  the  decorators  went  over  the  design 
again,  in  whole  or  in  large  part,  in  red  line.  These  lines 
of  the  second  sketch  may  be  found  repeatedly  spilling 
over  on  the  background  or  sinking  into  the  depressions 
of  the  carving,  that  is,  occurring  on  surfaces  which  were 
not  by  any  possibility  exposed  before  the  carving  was 

74 


DECORATION    AND  INSCRIPTIONS 

done;  they  are  not  to  be  confused  with  the  final  outlines 
which  lie  at  a  higher  level  and  are  usually  narrower. 
Occasionally  in  the  second  sketch  the  spelling  of  a  word 
is  corrected  or  a  cucumber  not  to  be  found  in  the 
sculpture  is  added  to  a  heap  of  offerings!  In  fig.  39, 
showing  one  of  the  vessels,  the  broken  lines  indicate 
the  second  sketch,  the  continuous  lines 
the  sculpture;  the  lip  of  the  vase  is 
drawn  in  the  sketch,  although  it  had 
been  left  out  in  the  sculpture  and  was 
to  be  completely  hidden  in  the  final  sur- 
face by  black  paint  representing  a  mud 
seal. 

The  walls  were  now  ready  for  the  col- 
ors which  were  to  form  their  visible  sur- 
face. Mineral  pigments  were  used  and 
included  blue,  green,  black,  gray,  white, 
brown,  yellow,  ochre,  orange-red,  and 
brown-red.  The  bright  blue  pigment  fe^ing-vessel 
forms  a  thick  granular  coating  which 
has  been  grayed  very  slightly  on  the  surface  but 
reveals  the  original  color  where  broken.  The  green, 
too,  lies  in  granules  and  except  here  and  there  has 
decomposed  to  a  very  pale  hue.  The  brown-red  is  very 
slightly  darkened  and  the  black  has  lost  something  of 
its  intensity,  but  the  other  colors  where  extant  are 
much  as  they  appeared  when  first  laid  on  the  wall.  The 
pale  blue  and  pale  ochre  to  be  seen  at  a  lower  level  are 
probably  mere  stains  due  to  the  sinking  in,  and  to  some 
extent  decomposition,  of  the  overlying  colors. 

The  order  of  procedure  in  laying  down  the  colors  may 
have  varied  somewhat  according  to  convenience  in 

75 


THE    TOMB    OF  PERNEB 

manipulating  the  brushes  and  pigments,  but  generally, 
as  recognizable  by  the  overlapping  of  the  different  pig- 
ments, the  gray  of  the  background  was  laid  down  first, 
the  black  and  brown-red  of  the  final  outlines  were 
added  next,  and  the  body  colors  were  put  on  last  of  all. 
A  notable  exception  to  this  order  is  found  in  the  brown- 
red  outlines  of  the  half-loaves  of  bread  on  the  offering- 
tables;  here  the  outlines  were  ruled  and  were  left  to  the 
last.  After  the  main  body  colors  were  in  place  various 
details  were  rendered  by  superimposed  bits  of  paint. 
Thus  we  find  black  dots  on  blue  to  suggest  the  indi- 
vidual grapes  of  a  bunch  of  grapes,  black  on  white  and 
on  ochre  to  indicate  the  spots  of  the  leopard's  skin. 

There  is  no  evidence  to  support  the  view  that  the 
Egyptians  sometimes  used  brushes  of  hair  in  painting; 
rather  it  is  almost  certain  that  all  this  decoration  in 
Perneb's  tomb  was  produced  with  brushes  of  various 
widths  formed  of  reeds  with  their  fibres  frayed  out  at 
one  end.  The  brush  strokes  are  readily  followed  in 
many  places. 

When  the  chamber  was  finished  and  still  in  perfect 
condition,  no  part  of  the  walls  was  untouched  by  color. 
Brown-red  appeared  on  the  skin  of  the  male  figures, 
black  on  their  wigs,  white  on  their  kilts,  blue  on  many 
vases,  yellow  on  others,  ochre  and  brown  on  loaves  of 
bread,  green  on  vegetables — to  mention  only  a  few  of 
the  prominent  masses  of  color.  Bright  rectangles  of  the 
various  colors  bordered  the  window  and  framed  the  side 
walls;  each  little  hieroglyph  was  a  sprightly  colored  pic- 
ture in  itself;  and  everywhere  the  gray  of  the  back- 
ground knit  together  and  toned  the  whole  color  scheme. 
Though  perhaps  less  pleasing  to  modern  taste  than  the 

76 


DECORATION    AND  INSCRIPTIONS 

uniform  creamy  tint  of  the  natural  limestone — in  which 
the  majority  of  mastaba  reliefs,  having  lost  their 
painted  surface,  are  seen  today — nevertheless  the  gay 
colors  made  the  place  a  cheerful  living-room  for  the 
spirit  of  the  deceased  "Lord  Chamberlain, "  whenever 
it  should  linger  on  earth,  and  a  more  attractive  resort 
for  the  relatives  and  friends  who  survived  him.  While 
we  may  be  confident  that  the  instinct  to  make  the  tomb- 
chambers  less  gloomy  was  back  of  the  custom  of  paint- 
ing the  mastaba  reliefs,  there  was  the  influence  as  well 
of  inherited  methods  of  decoration,  as  they  had  been 
developed  on  the  plastered  walls  of  mud-brick  buildings 
— not  only  tombs  but  houses.  In  judging  the  aesthetic 
effect  of  the  bright  colors,  as  they  were  originally,  one 
must  recall  that  Egyptian  reliefs  were  commonly  seen 
either  under  glaring  conditions  of  light,  as  on  the 
facade,  or  where  the  daylight  was  subdued  or  wholly 
lacking,  as  in  tomb  interiors;  artificial  means  of  lighting 
at  this  time  were  of  course  wholly  inadequate  to 
illuminate  the  reliefs  and  under  too  little  light  as  under 
too  much  light  intense  colors  were  needed. 

CONVENTIONS  IN  THE  USE  OF  COLOR 

Today,  if  we  can  steer  our  course  advisedly  amid  the 
conventions  of  the  drawing  and  painting  and  the  limita- 
tions in  the  selection  of  themes,  such  painted  reliefs  as 
these  on  Perneb's  walls  prove  a  fruitful  source  of  infor- 
mation about  life  as  it  went  on  in  the  Nile  Valley  in 
Pharaonic  times.  Too  often,  however,  because  the 
color  has  disappeared,  the  objects  represented  in  the 
reliefs  have  necessarily  been  interpreted  on  the  basis  of 
their  apparent  form  only;  here  the  large  amount  of 

77 


THE   TOMB   OF  PERNEB 

color  surviving  adds  to  the  usefulness  of  the  reliefs  when 
we  endeavor  to  visualize  Egyptian  dress,  furniture,  ves- 
sels, food-products,  ceremonies,  and  the  like.  We  may 
give  only  a  single  illustration  of  the  value  of  the  color 
from  this  point  of  view:  the  offerings  include  many 
trays  of  small  fig-shaped  fruits,  commonly  thought 
to  be  sycamore  figs;  these  are  now  found  on  the 
evidence  of  the  color  to  be  only  in  part  the  yellow 
sycamore  fig,  while  the  others  are  a  still  unidentified 
red  fruit. 

In  many  instances  the  color  is  employed  in  a  way 
which  is  at  once  intelligible  to  the  modern  sense.  Con- 
sider the  bowls  of  "blue  lotus"  flowers  (Nymphaea 
caerulea)  which  grace  Perneb's  mortuary  feast;  the 
green  on  the  leaves  and  sepals,  the  blue  on  the  petals, 
the  red  on  the  stems,  and  the  touches  of  yellow  at  the 
base  of  blossoms  and  buds  inspire  confidence  in  the 
truth  to  nature  of  the  Egyptian  use  of  colors.  Another 
obvious  attempt  at  realism  is  the  light  red  dotted  over 
with  black  to  give  the  effect  of  red  granite  which  was 
to  be  seen  on  the  limestone  blocks  of  the  ceiling 
and  on  the  undecorated  walls  of  the  vestibule.  But 
often  the  color  on  the  walls  does  not  so  nearly  approxi- 
mate the  natural  colors  of  the  objects  represented.  The 
convention  of  brown-red  for  the  male  and  yellow  for  the 
female  figures,  although  corresponding  to  a  difference  in 
the  complexion  of  men  and  women,  was,  of  course,  not 
intended  to  be  taken  literally;  indeed,  the  red  of  the 
male  figures  varies  considerably  on  Egyptian  monu- 
ments, being  sometimes  a  light  terracotta-red,  some- 
times almost  a  chocolate  color;  in  Perneb's  chamber 
while  the  usual  brown-red  is  employed  on  the  large 

78 


DECORATION    AND  INSCRIPTIONS 

figures,  the  hieroglyphs  which  represent  parts  of  the 
body  are  painted  orange-red. 

But  the  most  unexpected  conventions  occur  in  the 
application  of  blue,  the  latest  of  the  colors  to  make  an 
appearance  in  Egyptian  wall-decorations.  Paintings  in 
early  tombs  and  the  earliest  examples  of  painted  relief 
do  not  include  blue  in  their  repertory  of  colors,  and 
still  others,  somewhat  later  but  antedating  the  decora- 
tion in  Perneb's  tomb,  show  only  a  sparing  use  of  blue. 
The  color  seems  to  have  been  introduced  as  a  substitute 
here  and  there  for  black:  thus,  the  copper  points  of  har- 
poons and  other  implements,  at  first  painted  black, 
after  the  introduction  of  blue  were  more  commonly 
colored  blue ;  the  hair  of  animals  and  the  wigs,  or  closely 
shorn  hair,  of  men  were  occasionally  painted  blue 
instead  of  black;  and  hieroglyphs  which  represent  the 
plans  of  mud-brick  structures  appear  now  black,  now 
blue.  Even  so  in  Perneb's  tomb,  side  by  side  with  the 
more  comprehensible  use  of  blue  for  the  bluish  tips  of 
the  lotus  petals  or  for  bunches  of  grapes,  we  find  blue 
on  certain  vases,  presumably  to  indicate  copper,  and  on 
some  hieroglyphs  which  elsewhere  in  the  decoration, 
following  an  older  tradition,  are  painted  black. 

Far  from  being  crude  and  all  too  simple,  as  a  super- 
ficial acquaintance  might  suggest,  these  painted  reliefs 
reveal  vividly  conceived  scenes,  a  facile  technic,  and  a 
sophisticated  color  scheme,  all  the  result  of  a  long 
development  and  suited  admirably  to  the  physical  con- 
ditions and  purposes  of  the  building  in  which  they 
occur  and  to  the  temper  and  beliefs  of  the  age  which 
produced  them. 

Caroline  L.  Ransom. 


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